


The Dreamer

by QuimeraTheTraveller



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Anxiety, Comfort, Culture, Dreams, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Prophetic Dreams, Ship as you wish, Suicide Attempt, Suicide thoughts, Team as Family, Time Travel, catalan culture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-01-18 08:14:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 69,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12384345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuimeraTheTraveller/pseuds/QuimeraTheTraveller
Summary: A suicide attempt. 60 years later, an experiment with a cronal accelerator. You can make out what's next...





	1. At Gibraltar's Cliff

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is my fist fanfic ever. It is about 240 pages large, already finished.  
> I'm in the process of translating for peaplo to enjoy, but English is my third language, so if you spot a mistake, don't hesitate to make me know!
> 
> I keep some dialogues in other languages, so i'll problably write the translation in the notes at the end.
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

_Gibraltar, year 201X_

Ester stood near the cliff. A light wind blew that brought her the smell of sea salt and stranded it in her hair. There wasn’t any artificial light no help her see, just the moon and the stars, which couldn’t avoid the fact that the ocean looked like a huge black pit.

She started feeling fear.

Nobody knew she was there. Her parents where hundreds of kilometres away, and her supposed return wasn’t expected until a couple days. But, why come back? It wasn’t worth it.

Swallowing saliva, Ester took another step forward.

 

 

_Gibraltar, year 207X_

 

“Alright, Lena. Whenever you are ready, we are.”, said Winston from his terminal in the small hall before the training room, adjusting his glasses.

On the other side of the window, Lena was finishing adjusting a cable to her cronal accelerator.

She raised her thumps with a cheerful smile.

All the team had reunited for the test.

Winton turned the protocolary recording on:

“Tuesday, 17th of June. Training room -3. Cronal accelerator’s rang test. With a significant amount of energy, we expect Tracer to be able to go back further in time, increasing the interval from few seconds to minutes or hours. We proceed with the fist try. Lena, go ahead.”

Next to him, doctor Angela Ziegler lightly raised her Caduceus staff, just in case.

The sound of electric voltage raised as the markers in the cable lit up, drawing on towards the woman.

Without thinking it too much, Lena did the jump backwards, but something took her breath out.

A great blue flash filled the room.

No trace from Tracer.

 

Lena shouted when she found herself falling towards the black waves. In the middle of the panic, she saw another figure. Was it a person? She wasn’t sure. It fell in silence. What kind of person doesn’t scream when falling to the void? She managed to reunite enough concentration to move towards the falling body, which responded with a surprised grunt. Lena open her eyes wide, surprised too, but the proximity of the water forced her to hold her doubts. Hugging the unknown figure, she jumped in time again.

 

Two bodies hit the floor of the training room. Two feminine screams of pain filled the room. Wheezing, the two of them rolled away from each other.

“Tracer!”, her teammates called her.

They entered like a torrent, blocking the door.

“What happened?”, asked Winston.

“Where were you?”, asked Satya, rather interested.

“Where did you go, pal?!”, Lúcio told her off half-heartedly.

“Are you hurt?”, Angela asked in a rush, kneeling beside her.

“You had worried us.”, Zenyatta mentioned, floating peacefully.

“You exploded!”, exclaimed Hana, popping a bubble-gum.

“Fellas, fellas, let her breath!”, said McCree, trying to establish a calm atmosphere again.

“I’m okay.”, Lena answered, looking around her.

She had to turn around to see what she was looking for. Immediately, everybody followed her gaze.

Pressed against the wall, wild-eyed and still as a statue, there was a pale-skinned girl. Her brown curly hair was a total mess, and fell from her head in all directions. Her brown eyes didn’t express anything but fear. She breathed through her mouth, trying not to hyperventilate, but at that moment her throat would already be dry. She whore short jeans and a sleeve-less lilac shirt with an embroidered flower on her chest. Her pink trainers where dirty, and a bit wet. Her hands were stiff, like if she were trying to scratch the floor. Her gaze jumped from person to person, loosing control of her breathing.

“An intruder?”, Hanzo insinuated, reading bow and arrow.

The immediate threat unleashed a high-pitched scream.

“Easy, easy, we won’t hurt you!”, Winston tried to calm her down.

But the scream became longer. The girl tried to get away from the group by crawling on her back, but her movements couldn’t be called… coordinated.

“Winston! Winston, out of the room! You too, Hanzo! Everybody out, leave her room!”, Angela ordered.

The gorilla exited the room without putting up a fuss, but Hanzo threw another mistrustful glance before being led out by Genji. Either way, the girl didn’t notice.

Angela kneeled again to be at the same height as the girl’s eyes, without getting too near.

Lena mimicked her, staying where she was.

“Easy, nobody will hurt you.”, said Angela with gentle voice. She pointed herself. “My name is Angela. Do you speak English? Do you understand me?”

The girl swallowed hard and nodded.

“What’s your name? What languages do you speak?”

They spent a while in silence before the girl regained control of her breathing and answered.

“My name is Ester. I speak Catalan, Spanish and English.”, she answered with a thread of voice and rusted pronunciation.

“Ester. We have a person that speaks Spanish. Would you like us to call him? Will it be easier to you if you speak Spanish?”

Ester looked away for a moment to think, but she nodded. She didn’t think she was up to maintaining a conversation in a language so foreigner.

“Jesse, please, come over here.”, Angela asked looking towards the hall’s window.

Lena moved a bit closer to Ester, but she stopped when the later tensed.

“Hello. My name is Lena. Lena Oxton.”, she introduced herself with a reassuring smile.

“Hello.”, muttered Ester, confused. She looked away to watch the man dressed as a cowboy, who was moving closer like if nothing weird has happened. In front of that picture, her eyebrows furrowed, but when the man got too close she pressed herself against de wall, scared again.

“ _Uo, uo, tranquila!_ ”, he said to her in Spanish. He kneeled slowly. “ _Mi nombre es Jesse. Jesse McCree._ ”

“ _Soy Ester.”_ , she answered.

Jesse nodded.

“ _Angela es nuestra médico. Probablemente tanga preguntas para ti. ¿Necesitas que te traduzca lo que diga?_ ”

Ester shook her head.

“ _No creo, a no ser_ _que diga algo muy complicado_.”

Jesse gave her a small smile before looking at Angela and nodding.

“Ester, first of all, are you injured?”, asked the blonde woman.

She shook her head, but immediately after she forced herself to spread arms and legs to check herself. She has some scratches, but she barely noticed them.

“Good. I want you to know that you are in a safe place, and no one is going no hurt you. Do you need anything? A calmant?”

“No!”, the girl shouted, and no translation was necessary.

“Alright, alright. Do you want us to leave? Will it help you if we leave you alone?”

“ _No. No. Quedaos, solo... Necesito silencio..._ ”

“She doesn’t want us to go.”, Jesse translated. “Only needs some silence.”

The three of them backed off a little to give her room. They sat in silence, while the girl buried her face between her knees.

 

“Maybe one of my harmony orbs would help her…”, mentioned Zenyatta from the other side of the window.

“I don’t think so.”, grumbled Zarya. “Look at how she reacted to Winston, the last think she needs now is an omnic…”

“A bit of music, maybe?”, suggested Lúcio.

“If she asked for silence, maybe we should just leave her alone…”, opined Mei.

 

Ester was immersed in her thoughts. What the hell had happened? Where was she? Who were those people? Did a gorilla just talk to her? Was she dead? Was that what there was after? No. If she were dead she wouldn0t have so much trouble breathing. She hoped that that was nothing more than one of her dreams. Maybe she had dreamed everything. Maybe she never went to Gibraltar, and when less she expected, she would wake up in her room: she would get up, get dressed, and would head out to the train station…

She raised her heat to pull air in with her nose and expulse it with her mouth.

“ _Estoy... Estoy más tranquila...”_ , she said, clearing her throat.

“She says she is calmer now.”, translated Jesse with a slightly raspy voice.

“Very well.”, Angela cheered her up. “I will continue with my questions, then. Where are you from?”

“ _De... De cerca de Barcelona_.”

“Near from Barcelona.”, translated the cowboy again, feeling that that was not necessary at all.

“Good. How old are you? Do you have any illness or allergy?”

“ _Dieciocho años. Y... no. No tengo alergias_ _.”_

“Eighteen years old. No known allergies.”

“Perfect. Do you know where you are?”

Ester shook her head.

“You are in Overwatch’s Gibraltar’s base. You are safe here.”

The girl frowned.

“¿ _Qué_ _es Overwatch?”_

“She… asks what Overwatch is.”, said McCree.

Everybody backed a bit and exchanged glares. Haven’t she heard of?

It was Lena who dared to tempt the terrain.

“Overwatch. The organization that ended the Omnic Crisis? Got disbanded some time ago, but now is getting together again?”

 _“¿Qué es un omnic?”,_ she asked, even more confused.

“Oh, my…”, was already muttering Winston.

“Ester… When were you born?”, asked Angela.

The girl swallowed hard. It was an easy question. Why was so hard to answer?

“23th August of the year 1999.”, she answered in English.

Lena and Angela covered their mouths with a hand. McCree’s jaw was about to drop to the floor.

“Ohhhh my goooooooooood!”, Lúcio’s voice was heard.

“What…? What year it is?”, asked Ester, terrorized. But nobody answered. “What year it is!”, she yelled again.

The three from the room looked each other before turning around to look at their teammates, but nobody seemed able to make a decision. Finally, Lena turned back towards her.

“We… We are at the 70s. From the 2000.”


	2. The Newcomer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To adapt isn't the strong point for a lot of people.

Ester remained closed in her assigned room for three days. She refused any kind of human contact, except for when they brought her the meals. From the corridor, they could hear her cry and scream, but the girl refused all tries of consolation throwing pillows against those who dared to approach her. She seemed immune to Lúcio’s music, who tried to lure her outside her room with different beats. Neither she answered the videogame mentions that Hana did right beside her door, saying out loud that she needed a second player. She was even less interested in the small talk Mei and Zarya had about the good weather, nor Angela’s offer to go out for cookies.

 

“So, she travelled with you?”, had asked Winston in the posterior meeting to the incident.

“It’s the only explanation.”, nodded Lena.

“Amazing! That you are capable of moving somebody with you…!”. The scientist interrupted himself when he noticed the troubled glares of their companions. “It has been… An unfortunate accident.”

They remained in silence for a moment. In the room there only was Angela, Winston, Lena, Reinhardt and Jack.

“Well, considering that she is here because of us, I guess the least we can do is let her stay. Winston, do you think we could return her to her time?”, asked Jack.

“I wouldn’t say it’s impossible, but first I need to know what caused the huge time-jump. It was supposed to jump an hour, not years, even less decades!”

“Alright. I think it’s important we make clear that we are doing what we can to take her back home.”

“Guys.”, interrupted Lena. She seemed troubled, like if she has doubted to speak up but she had finally decided to do it, as uncomfortable as it could be. “When I jumped backwards… I was falling. We both fell towards the sea.”

“Hmm…”, pondered Winston. “If you moved in time but not in space, it’s natural that you fell… Sixty years ago the building wasn’t here…”

“It was night time.”, continued Lena. “And she didn’t scream when falling.”

Her words were heavy as a stone slab.

“Do you…? Do you think she was trying to commit suicide?”, asked Angela.

Lena nodded.

The doctor suddenly stood up and turned to the door.

“Where are you going?”, asked her Reinhardt, holding her by an arm.

“That girl needs psychological support!”, she grunted.

“That girl is surrounded by strangers, sixty years in the future! Do you really think you will help her if you go now and start to ask her why was she throwing herself to the sea?”, tried to expose the big man with soft voice.

Angela stopped struggling and looked down.

Jack scratched his eyes.

“Alright, objective number one: get the girl to don’t kill herself. Objective number two: get the girl to don’t want to kill herself. Objective number three: get her home. Everybody agrees?”

He had exposed it in a very raw way, but those were their plans for Ester summed up.

“What if we can’t take her home?”, asked Lena. “We can’t just isolate her from the world, can we? That would be… inhuman.”

“It wouldn’t be wise to give her information about history either…”, commentated the gorilla. “If she knows too many things, she could try to change those, and our present would result in very different facts…”

“And… would that be a bad thing?”, thought Reinhardt out loud.

Nobody knew what to answer. They looked down, ashamed, even when they didn’t know for sure about what.

“One thing at a time. Winston, you take care of the investigation of what caused the temporal-jump. Angela, if you want to sound out Ester’s mental state, do it in a subtle way. Lena, will you make sure that she is okay? Introduce the rest of the team to her, make her see that we accept everything here.

“Yes, sir.”, nodded Lena.

“And… Do we tell this to the rest of the team…? You know, that… She tried to suicide.”, wanted to be sure the German.

“I don’t think we have the right to go telling it around. She will tell us when she is ready.”, pointed out Angela.

“Is there another matter?”, asked Jack.

They exchanged looks, but nobody said anything else.

“We leave it here, then.”

 

Lena knocked Ester’s door at the afternoon of the third day. It had been her who has brought her her meals and who has received the most negatives of the girl, apart from poor McCree, who had offered himself to try and stablish a conversation with her in Spanish, just to end up with a dirty trainer in the face.

“Ester!”, she called cheerfully with her soprano voice.

She opened the door and entered to find the girl curled up on the bed, with her back resting against a side of the closet next to the bed’s head with her eyes lost into nowhere. She had changed her clothes and now dressed a short sleeve white shirt and short fabric pants. The door to the bathroom was opened: the floor was covered in wet towels. The cloths with which she has arrived with laid now on the floor, wrinkled and abandoned. Onside the table of the room rested disorganised papers with faces of all kinds drawn by pen, but the sad and angry faces were more abundant. A sheet a part was covered with winged figures falling from the sky.

Ester turned her head and looked at her.

“Hello.”, she greeted without enthusiasm, but at least she seemed to be ready to jump up at her.

“Hello! Um, I was wondering if you would like to go for a stroll…”

“Yes.”, answered Ester, getting up.

“Yes?”, did Tracer, perplexed. She thought it would be much harder to get her out.

“Yes. I am tired of being locked here.”, she repeated, nearing the door and rubbing her forehead and her eyes.  “Let’s go?”

“Oh, yes, of course!”, reacted the woman, getting away from the door. Once outside, she noticed the younger’s feet. “Um, aren’t you putting shoes on?”

Ester stopped and stared at her naked feet.

“I like to be like this, but if it bothers you I can put on shoes.”

“Oh, no no! No problem for me.”, she smiled.

For the first time, Ester returned the smile.

“Can we go outside? Do you have a space with trees, or something like that?”

“Of course, love!”, sing-sang Lena, more cheerful all of a sudden. “This way!”

They walked the corridors in silence. Lena walked happily in front. Behind her, Ester looked around her non-stop, to the other side of the windows, the lights that lighted the corridor, the doors…

“Do you like the place?”, asked Lena.

“Haven’t seen much.”, answered the girl, shrugging.

“Oh. True. Well, there’s not much else to see: only the rooms, the labs, the common lounge, the training facilities, the hangars, the public spaces…”

“I think I’ll get lost around here…”, tried to laugh Ester.

“Ah, don’t worry! If you get lost, you only have to shout and somebody will find you and indicate the way!”

“I… wouldn’t like to bother anyone…”, she said, lowering her gaze.

Lena tensed.

“Nonsense! If we are around here, it means we are not busy!”, she laughed. “Okay?”

“Okay.”, she answered, not very convinced.

They climbed up a couple of floors using the stairs and arrived to a more opened zone that connected with an exterior garden projected towards the sea. It consisted on a grass zone crossed by a path of white stone that twisted between trees. The garden expanded beyond a corner of the building. Ester went to lean on the viewpoint’s rail. Lena followed her, trying not to look serious. The girl closed her eyes when a gust of wind brought the sea’s salt to her face.

Silence settled among them.

When bringing her food, Lena had told her a bit about the most relevant facts of history: the Omnic Crisis, Overwatch’s formation, it’s fall and the recall. She had talked a bit about the other members of the team, despite Ester hadn’t seemed interested in listening to her. The girl had formulated a couple of questions, short and direct, so it couldn’t be said they has maintained a conversation.

Ester sighed.

“I am sorry I have behaved that way. You are letting me stay, and in top of that I just make things harder…”

“Hey, don’t worry. We understand you are in a difficult situation, and that we can’t even begin to imagine how you must feel… But Winston is already working in a way to take you home. In the meanwhile, you are welcome with us, you hear?”, she said, placing a hand on her shoulder.

Ester’s lips stared to tremble. Her shoulders jumped. Two tears escaped her wet eyes.

She didn’t shun Lena’s embrace. She returned the hug and cried over her shoulder.

“It’s okay, it’s okay… Everything will be alright, you’ll see…”


	3. The dinner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ester meets the base's residents.

The day after, Ester and Lena stood in front of the dinning room. Ester was shaking out of nerves. That was going to be the first time she would see and talk with the other members of the team. She wanted to cause a good impression, despite already knowing that trying to create appearances was useless.

“Don’t worry, love!”, Lena cheered her up. “Nobody will eat you!”

“You sure?”, she blew with a nervous laugh. She was starting to blush.

“You are adorable and polite! Why would anybody want no eat you?”

“Because I’m an intruder who comes from the past and does nothing to collaborate in… whatever you do?”, she exposed, inclining her hear towards Lena.

At first, that manifestation of honesty left her wordless.

“Nonsense!”, she answered as last resort, opening the door and pushing her inside. “Hello!”, she greeted happily.

Ester went breathless. Fifteen persons sat around a big rectangular table. Everybody tuned their heads when they heard Lena.

“Hello!”

“Ei!”

“What’s up?”

“Greetings.”

“Come on in!”

“Go ahead!”

“You were taking your time!”

“Yo!”

“Hey!”

“Da!”

“Oi!”

“Blessings.”

“Get comfortable.”

“Ja!”

“Hello…”, answered Ester, trying to smile. She hadn’t been able to distinguish who has said each thing, but at the moment it seemed like they were starting with the right foot.

Lena pushed her slightly by her shoulders, indicating her two empty seats. The girl sat between Lena an Angela with her head slightly bowed. If someone has doubts about her shyness, now everything was clear.

Jack stood up and started serving salad.

“Well, then, I guess I’ll introduce you!”, said Lena with her cheerful voice. “People, this is Ester: yes, the one that I dragged through time by mistake.”

Faint smiles crossed everyone’s features.

“Ester, they are…”, she started enumerating at her right. “Mei-Ling Zhou…”

“You can call me Mei!”, said happily a very cute girl, waving at her.

Ester returned the gesture with a grateful smile.

“… Aleksandra Zaryanova…”

“You can call me Zarya.”, completed the great woman with heavy accent.

“… Reinhardt Wilhelm…”

“ _Guten tag!_ ”, greeted her the colossal man, raising his glass.

She answered him with a sincere smile and a little giggle. He looked like an over trained Santa Claus.

“…Torbjörn Lindholm…”

“Hey!”, saluted her the little man with a clamp for hand. Ester returned the sign, a little ashamed. She hadn’t seen him…

“…Hana Song…”

“Hello! Listen, if you come from year two thousand ten and then some, are you the youngest or the oldest here? Do you like videogames? Have you ever met an AI? Have you talked to Athena yet?”

“Hana, don’t stress her…”, Jack told her off.

“Uhm, it’s okay.”, intervened Ester. “Sooooo… Maybe I’m the youngest an oldest at the same time? Don’t know. I come from the past but I am not a granny. Yes, I like videogames; no, I have never met an AI; and, who is Athena?”

“I am Athena.”

Ester jumped in her sit and looked around her, searching for who had spoken.

“Athena is our AI.”, briefly laughed Winston. “Athena, greet Ester appropriately.”

“Welcome to Overwatch’s facilities, miss Ester.”

“Um… thank you… Is she…? Are you everywhere…?”, she asked to the air, feeling silly.

“I am in all electronic systems of the building.”, answered the feminine voice efficiently.

“And… do you hear everything?”

“Everything that is recorded by the security recordings, and everything said addressing to me.”

“And isn’t that… invasive, for privacy?”

“I don’t save records of the agents personal activities.”

“Ah. Okay.”, she said, not convinced at all.

Lena cleared her throat. “He is Lúcio Correia dos Santos…”, she proceeded.

“Hello!”, he greeted with an energy explosion. The boy hadn’t stayed still in his seat, waiting for his turn to introduce himself. “It’s very nice to meet you! Do you like music? Would you like to listen to some of my songs?”

“I would love to.”, smiled Ester.

Lúcio seemed very happy with that answer.

“…Satya Vaswani…”

“Pleased to meet you.”, she introduced by bowing her head. Ester mimicked her.

“…Takhartha Zenyatta…”

“May the path of life be kind to you.”, saluted the omnic with an ample motion with his hand.

“Oh.”, did Ester, inclining her head slightly with a curious smile. “Hello! Thank you!”, she answered. Her eyes radiated with excitement and curiosity.

Zenyatta’s metallic laugh resonated within the room.

“If you have any questions referent to the omnics, I would be glad to give you extended answers in another moment…”

“Yes!”, she answered in record time. “I would love to!”

A general laughter filled the room.

“He is Genji Shimada…”, continued Lena.

“Yo!”, greeted the man in the weird helmet.

“Yo!”, she mimicked him. Something in his voice has compelled her to greet him with the same enthusiasm. They both inclined their heads in mutual curiosity. Ester couldn’t know if Genji was smiling, but she had the feeling it was that way.

“…Hanzo Shimada…”

He limited to bend forwards in greeting. When he was done, Ester mimicked him and dedicated him a little smile, which wasn’t returned.

“…you already know Jesse McCree…”

The man dressed in cowboy’s clothes took his hat’s wing with two fingers and inclined it along with his head. The girl smiled, ashamed.

“I am sorry for throwing you a trainer to the face…”, she apologised.

Jesse laughed it off.

“Ah, no worries! I have been thinkin’ ‘bout it and I thought I would too throw a boot to someone’s face if I ended up at year two thousand and a hundred!”

This time it was Ester who laughed. She calmed down as fast as she could.

“…this is Fareeha Amari…”

“Welcome.”, nodded the woman.

“Thank you.”, she answered.

“…and I think you already know the rest of us: Winston…”

“Hello.”, saluted the gorilla, worried in case he scared her again.

“Hello!”, she greeted in more enthusiasm in realization.

“…Angela Ziegler…”

The doctor next to her smiled, and Ester matched her.

“… I am Lena Oxton, and the one who spends three years serving is Jack Morrison!”

“You try to serve dinner for seventeen, smarty!”, grunted Jack, serving the last plate.

When he sat down, everybody started to eat, except for Genji and Zenyatta. Ester decided not to ask. Small chat erupted here and there. She managed to relax a little bit. Her first impression was that, in general, people there were kind. Yes: she still had the feeling of being a liability, but… how could she get rid of it if she didn’t know how to help?

“Um… I got a question that I hope it won’t be awkward…”, she said in a pause.

“Go ahead.”, encouraged her Mei.

“What does Overwatch do, exactly?”

“Wow, that’s a good one.”, laughed McCree.

“We try to make the world a better place.”, answered Jack.

“How?”

“Well… When Overwatch was disbanded, a lot of issues stayed pending… I, for example, am searching for the weaponry that got stolen or left behind.”, explained Torbjörn.

“I am searching for the cause of climatic change.”, added Mei.

“I’m trying to create a social movement to make a better world.”, said Lúcio, very proud of himself.

“I seek redemption.”, intervened Hanzo.

“I had always dreamed on joining Overwatch.”, said Fareeha raising her head high.

“I want to stablish order so the world is better.”, explained Satya taking her fork to her mouth.

“Here I have good instruments for my medical research, and if in the meanwhile I can save lives…”

“HONOR!!!”, exclaimed Reinhardt raising his glass.

Ester smiled at his enthusiasm.

“Overwatch is my home. I have all my scientific research and friends here.”, said Winston with his heart on his hand.

“I fight for what I think it’s fair.”, established McCree.

“I protect those who I love”, added Zarya.

“So, everyone goes by their own?”

“I guess you could day we have different priorities, but when someone has a lead, we set up a meeting and make teams to investigate it.”, explained Jack.

“Could… I come to one of those meetings? I have never fought, so probably there will be little I can do to help, but… I don’t know. I feel like I am living here at your expanse…”

“Aw, don’t worry, we don’t mind.”, answered Tracer.

“I don’t see any problem with that.”, nodded Winston.

 

When they were done with the meal, people started to retreat on their own. Ester covered a yawn with the back of her hand.

“You are free to go whenever you want.”, Angela reassured.

“I don’t dare leaving alone.”, she confessed. “I’m sure I’ll get lost.”, she half smiled.

“Oh, I can accompany you if you want!”, Mei offered herself, smiling from behind her glasses.

“Okay.”, she answered, getting up and bidding farewell with a “good night”.

“Are you really going to let her come to the meetings?”, said Hanzo, who had eaten slower than usual. “She could be an infiltrated.”

“Oi, Hanzo, don’t get to it again!”, told him off Genji. “You were there too, when she appeared.

“You all assume this time travel thing, but what if she used a teleporter to get here?”

“Hanzo, for the love of god, I jumped in time with her!”, said Lena.

“You assume you travelled in time, but what if you just moved in space? What if all of this is a plot for us to let our guard down and accept an spy?”

“If she is, it has to be recognised that she works her reactions very well.”, joked Winston.

“Oh, come on, have you seen her arms? I doubt she does any kind of exercise, even less know how to fight or use a weapon.”, pointed out Fareeha.

“Agreed.”, nodded Genji.

“Well… it’s true we don’t have anything that confirms her origin…”

“Jack! How can you say that?!”, said Lena with betrayal in her voice.

“Being sincere, Lena: can you affirm you did a cronal jump?”

“Yes! Yes, I did and felt the same as always, from when I rewind!”

“The energy flux could have altered your senses…”, pointed out the gorilla.

“I can’t believe this! We just had dinner with her, we are sure we are gonna let her stay with us, and now you come up with this?!”

“Nobody is accusing her of anything…”, Jack tried to put peace.

“I am.”, interrupted him Hanzo, fact that cost him a couple glares.

“…but we can’t risk it. Hanzo is right, to a certain degree. I wouldn’t consider Ester a menace, but have her under surveillance won’t do any bad.”

Lena crossed her arms, noticeably angry, and left without saying anything else.

Jack sighed and rubbed his eyes with the tip of his fingers.

“I will talk to Ester tomorrow.”, said Angela. “I would like to run some tests on her to have a medical record, but I won’t do it without her consent. If she refuses or I find something strange, I’ll let you know.”

“Thank you, Angela.”, answered the man with tired voice.

 

“You sure it’s this way?”, asked Ester, disoriented. Being night time, she recognised the place even less.

“Yes. Room 205, you said, right?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s this corridor, I am certain! Did you like the dinner? Did you have fun?”

“Yes.”, answered the girl with sincerity. “You look like really good people.”

“Ah, you are really kind too! And cute! I love your hair!”

“Thank you.”, she smiled tugging one of her curls, which returned bouncing to it’s place.

“Listen, I have a lab at the floor above, and my room it’s the 213. You will recognize de places because of the of the Antarctic stickers. You can drop whenever you like, if you need anything or you’d just like to say hello!”, completed Mei, stopping by the door 205.

“Thank you very much.”, Ester smiled. “Good night.”

“Good night!”

 

 


	4. First day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bit of socializing.

_A pig, huge and ugly, chased her in a dark forest. Ester screamed and ran, trying to climb up the trees, but it was impossible. She could only keep running, with the pig getting closer and closer, until she could feel it’s weight trying to catch her, smash her…_

_With a great shake, the landscape changed._

_A rat moved it’s little paws among a weird device. Just by looking at it, Ester could tell it was a bomb. The rat tugged two cables outside the metallic structure: a red one and a blue one. It cut the red cable with it’s teeth._

_The bomb exploded._

 

Ester woke up with a shake and rolled on the blanket, rising awareness of the real world. If she wasn’t dead, then that was a dream. If that was a dream, then this was reality. She got up with heavy eyelines and went to the bathroom. Sat on the toilet, she wondered what time it was. She hadn’t looked at it. Should it matter to her? It wasn’t like she had any kind of obligation or time table to follow… She decided to take a shower so she wouldn’t have to brush her curls. She dressed up with a sky blue tank top and loose three quarts pants. She exited the room without putting on shoes and headed up for the kitchen. There there where Lúcio, Reinhardt and Angela, chating.

Ester moved between them to reach the hanging cupboard,

“I would sleep like a marmot.”, Lúcio was saying. “I ended up working in my new track until two in the morning…”

“You have to put yourself a limit.”, said Angela. “You have to sleep at least eight hours a day.”

Ester stretched her arm by the doctor’s head, opened the cupboard, extracted the cookies that they had bought for her and pivoted on her heel to head for the fridge.

“Do as I do, and take naps!”, laughed Reinhardt.

“Do you think Ester will be up already? I have to talk to her, but I don’t want to wake her up if she is tired…”, commented the doctor.

“I am here.”, said then Ester, who searched for milk in the fridge.

The three of them yelped. Lúcio and Reinhardt even jumped. The girl looked at them as if she didn’t understand the reaction. Lúcio looked side to side of the room, incredulous to the thought that the girl had been able to cross the space to the fridge (which was in the farest corner from the door) without anyone seeing or hearing her.

“Sorry.”, she apologised anyway.

“How… How did you do that?!”

Ester took the milk from the fridge and rose a feet on her hell to study it.

“I am barefoot.”, she said, and proceeded to pour herself a cup of milk. “What did you wanted to tell me, Angela?”

“Uhm… I would like to run some medical tests on you, if it isn’t an inconvenient…”

“Ah, no. Wait. Will you, eh… extract blood?”, she asked frowning.

“Yes, an analysis would be very useful.”

“So, I better have breakfast later? Analysis are done on fast, right?”

“Yes. Yes, but we can leave it for the afternoon.”

“Let’s do it now.”, answered Ester pushing the milk and cookies aside with flickering voice. “I don’t like analysis. I am not used to those. Now I already know that I have to do one and I’m nervous, so please let’s get over with it.”, she explained walking to the doctor and massaging her left arm, as if she could already feel the sting.

Her malaise expression made Angela’s heart shrink.

“It’s okay.”, she tried to calm her down. “I don’t exactly know how analysis were made sixty years ago, but I am confident that the current methods are more effective… and less painful.”

Ester nodded, still doubting in spite of the woman being right. She followed her through the hallways.

“I don’t like the idea, you know? It must sound stupid, but it’s awful…”

“A lot of people have fear of medical procedures, but it is a baseless phobia as any other. The materials and techniques I use are 100% safe.

They entered a white room filled with vaguely familiar instruments, but which Ester didn’t recognize. A lot of tools had lines that glowed with a faint blue or green.

Angela let her observe while she prepared the material.

“Sit here, please.”, she said while pointing a white armchair with sterile looks.

Ester sat down and did what possible to relax. Angela turned in her stool and turned again with a white object in one hand.

“Look: I will use this.”, and she offered her the instrument.

Hesitantly, the girl accepted it and looked it over. It remembered her of a gun, in a sort of way, but it was too rounded to transmit any sense of danger. There wasn’t even anything sharp.

“Where’s the needle?”, she asked perplexed after turning the artefact around a couple of times and didn’t finding it.

“It’s retractile, and very small. It is though so the patient won’t see it and won’t get nervous. In fact, you won’t even see the blood that I will take.”, smiled the doctor.

“Ah. Okay.”, she did, returning the object slowly, as is she were afraid of broking it. “I think I will look another way anyway…”

“As you wish.”, smiled Angela.

Ester stretched her right arm and turned her head, looking to the window. She could see the crown of one of the trees from the garden.

“Did you like dinner?”

“Yes. Food was very good, and so was company.”

“I am glad to hear that.”

Ester felt a pressure on her right arm. Her heart raced, waiting for the sting.

“Have you though what will you do today?”

“I would like to talk to Zenyatta. I am very curious about omnics. Truth is I am a bit scared of making offensive questions…”

“We know that you wouldn’t make those with bad intentions, you know? It’s natural to ask for things that are unknown to you. Is there something else that preoccupies you? You can talk about it, if you need. We have patient-doctor confidentiality.”

The girl thought about it for a moment.

“Yes. Do you know if I could help in any way? I feel bad being here, doing nothing. You don’t have any obligation on maintaining me, but you do it anyway.”

“Ah, yes. I understand the feeling.”, sighed Angela at the same time that the pressure on Ester’s arm disappeared. “If you want to help, you can always offer to make dinner, or taking care of buying groceries. You could also ask someone if someone with a lab needs an assistance. By the way, we are done with the analysis.”

The curled haired head turned suddenly to look at her arm. She raised her gaze to Angela’s blue eyes.

“Already?”

“Yes.”

“I haven’t felt a thing.”, she said, really impressed.

The doctor smiled lightly.

“That’s good, isn’t it?”

Ester huffed, relieved.

“What now?”, she asked, much more willing to cooperate and curious for the medic marvels of the future.

 

Angela observed as Ester walked away after indicating her the place where Zenyatta used to meditate. Her farewell smile faded when she got inside her office. She brought a finger to her ear.

“Jack, I have Ester’s tests. Could you come a moment?”

“I’m on my way.”, answered the man’s voice.

It didn’t even took a minute for him to appear through the door.

“So?”

“Look at this.”, said Angela, subjecting some kind of white stick. She clicked a switch, and from the upper part emerged a screen that showed a thorax radiography. The spine was emphasised, and the dorsal was surrounded by foreign objects. “This is her back.”

The old soldier’s eyes opened wide. “What…?”, he didn’t know, or didn’t dare to end the sentence.

“Those are metal nails and bars. I was surprised too, of course, and I have asked her about their origin. She said her spine was diverting and this was the only option so her ribs didn’t end up smashing her heart.”, the doctor brought a hand to her mouth. “ _Mein Gott_. No wonder she was scared of the analysis. Such a… rudimentary procedure…”

Silence settled.

“Her movements must be limited.”, Jack commented.

Angela sighed.

“I have taken a closer look to the spine and the ribcage.” She resumed. “I strongly believe that the spine’s deviation was caused by a fall of at least five meters.”

Jack turned away from the radiography to look at her.

“You think she had already tried to suicide?”

“A person does not fall from that high by accident.”, she shrugged.

“But five meters aren’t that much. If you wanted to die, you would search for a much higher place, where you got the feeling that you would surely die. Haven’t you asked her?”

“She told me she fell, and that’s it. I didn’t want to push her any more.”

“Alright. Something else?”

“No. Everything normal. Good pressure, heartbeat a bit elevated, good weight for her height… She has her soles full of callus, and I don’t wonder, if she goes barefoot everywhere. She could pound a rock and not notice. Muscle tone practically null. My conclusion is: no apt for combat. At least, not hand to hand.”

“She isn’t a menace.”, summed up Jack, and Angela nodded. “Alright, then. I’ll make Hanzo know so he stays calm. Thank you, doctor Ziegler.”

 

Ester went down the stairs to the lowest floor, as Angela had indicated her. She walked in the dimly-light of the hallways with the only company of the muffled sounds of her steps until the sound of waves drowned them and she saw two figures through the window, looking at the sea. She swallowed and opened the door. Zenyatta and Genji turned upon hearing her arrival.

“Hello.”, she greeted shyly. “Am I bothering you?”

“Ah, come, young lady! I suppose you seek answers to your questions?”, Zenyatta invited her over.

Ester did a couple of insecure steps, looking at Genji, who sat on the floor with his legs crossed. The omnic floated next to him.

“If you are busy, I can come later…”

“We were meditating, but we don’t mind taking a break.”, said Genji, and again Ester had the feeling he was smiling.

“Go ahead.”, with a movement of his hand, Zenyatta invited her to sit down.

Ester sat with her legs crossed at the same time the monk descended to the floor.

“Uhm, how… how do you float?”

“I have always been able to do so.”, he answered with her serene voice.

“ _Guay._ ”

Genji released a snicker, which the girl answered with an awkward smile.

“Would it be offensive if I referred to you as robot or omnic?”

“Would it be rude if I referred to you as human or female?”, he answered.

Ester righted up her back abruptly, surprised by the comparison of concepts.

“Wow.”, was the cleverest thing she was able to answer. By giving her a question for an answer, the monk had already earned all the respect Ester could offer to someone.

“If you allow me, I offer you an harmony orb. It will help you relax.”

The girl leaned back when a sphere approached her floating.

“Isn’t this like a drug, then?”

“It is not addictive, if that is what worries you.”

“I worry that you influence my mental state.”, she replied, trying to move the orb away with the tip of her fingers. But the fact that the sphere returned to it’s orbit amused her immensely, despite being such a simple thing.

“I understand. Then, I will retreat it…”

“No, no! It’s fun.”, she rectified, pushing the ball again. This approached her again and resumed it’s trip around the girl and chest height. When it returned in front of her, she pushed it again. “How old are you?”

“Twenty.”

“Uoah. You are very young. What’s the first thing you remember?”

“The illumination.”

“Do you follow a religion?”

“The Iris.”

“What’s the Iris?”

“The state of synchrony with the universe.”

“Cool. How do you get it?”

“Meditation and spiritual reflection. Would you allow me a question, Ester?”

“Of course.”

“Do you think I have a soul?”

Once again, the girl was left shocked. She stared at what she thought were Zenyatta’s eyes and inclined her head a bit.

“That’s a good question which I have to reflect about… But my fist answer would be yes.”

“Oh. May I ask why?”

“Uhm. If I hadn’t seen you never before and I had my eyes closed, I couldn’t affirm that I am not talking to a human. How would I say it… You have personality.”

“Don’t you think that that personality may be programmed?”

“Not more than human personalities are programmed by their genes. Furthermore, personality is part experiences, and nobody is controlling yours, isn’t it?”

Zenyatta let out a pleased sound.

“Besides, at this point you could tell me McCree is from Mars and I would believe it.”

A burst of laughter escaped Genji, while Zenyatta knew how to control himself better, as well as Ester.

She cleared her throat to regain the serious tone of the conversation.

“This thing of the Omnic Crisis… It was foreseeable? Was there margination for part of the humans? Not all omnics are bad, right? Neither they are all good.”

“Ah, yes, there was margination… A big part of humans thought that we weren’t truly alive. They wanted us to keep with our assigned tasks, but we wanted freedom. And, yes, like humans, there are good and bad omnics, but deep inside we all want the same: to live in peace.”

“Hm. I had always thought that we humans have been rose alone. Like an intelligent species, I mean. There isn’t any other _Homo_ species, so we have developed without brothers. I wondered what would happen if we ever get to have a step-brother… I guess I am more realistic than pessimistic.”

“It comforts me to hear that someone from so many years ago already reflected on those issues.”

Ester pushed the orb again. “Thank you. By the way, what are those lights you have on your head?”

Zenyatta rose a hand to touch them. “I have always had them.”

“They are cool. Okay, last question, and this one is probably the weirdest…”

“Go ahead.”

“Can I touch you?”

Now he seemed to be the shocked one.

“I don’t see why not.”, he answered, offering an arm.

Ester leaned forward and touched the back of his hand with her fingertips.

“Do you feel when I touch you?”

“Yes.”

The girl moved closer to get to him more easily and traced his fingers with hers. She raised her gaze and stared at the monk’s shoulders, which she found very interesting. She decided not to ask why he was wearing pants, and contented herself by observing his torso and head.

“Uh, I think I don’t have more questions. Thank you!”

“My pleasure.”, nodded Zenyatta.

Then Ester turned to Genji, curiosity flooding out of her eyes.

“Can I ask you questions?”

“I think I will save it to you and I’ll explain you.”

“Ah. Okay.”

“My name is Shimada Genji and I’m a cyborg. I have organic parts but I’m mostly cybernetic. It took me a while to get used to my new body, but Sensei helped me find interior peace.”

“Are Hanzo and you related?”

“Brothers, yes. He is the elder, and I’m the younger.”

“Don’t you need to eat?”

“I can do it, but I don’t need it. I think that if I ate, I would be wasting food that would benefit someone else.”

“Ah. I like your helmet and… Is that a sword?!”

Genji looked behind him.

“A katana, yes.”

“Can I touch it?”, her eyes begged. Her excitement was such that he didn’t know how to say no.

“Be careful to not hurt yourself…”, he accepted offering it to her.

Ester took it leaning forward and she almost falls on him. It was heavier than she thought. Despite this, she touched and looked at it with admiration.

“Woah…! Are you a cyborg ninja?!”

“Yep.”

“So cool!”, she exclaimed, totally lost in her fantasies. “I love the green part… Why do you have so many things that glow?”

“You said it. It’s cool.”

“Yes, okay, but doesn’t this make it so much easier to see you?”

“Not so much to make it a problem.”, said Genji, shrugging.

“Hm.”, Ester did as an answer. Next second she was standing and returned the sword to it’s owner. “So that’s it. Thanks for answering my questions!”

“You are most welcome. You are invited to join us in meditation whenever you want to.”

“Thanks. I’ll go to explore a little. See you!”, she said goodbye, waving her hand.

 

Once separated, Ester returned to the kitchen. Between having woke up late, the tests and the conversation, it was almost lunchtime. She didn’t had any experience cooking for people, so she wondered if she could offer herself to help get the meals ready. Upon arriving, she found Lúcio cooking.

“Hello!”, she greeted.

“Hey!”, he greeted her. “How did the morning go?”

“I have been talking with Angela, Zenyatta and Genji. What about you? Are you making lunch?”

“I have finished my new track! Listen, this evening Hana and I are going to do a games and music marathon. Would you like to join?”

“Yeah, I would love to!”

“Cool!”, he smiled.

“Do you want me to help you with lunch? I’d like to help with the base’s chores, but I don’t have much experience…”

“Yeah, of course. I’m making mashed potatoes and steak. You cook the meat?”

“Alright!”, Ester smiled, happy about the fluidity of the conversation.

 

Ester found out that, unlike with dinner, lunch happened in different stages: first; Mei, Zarya and Lena appeared. Scarce minutes later, but enough for Lena to finish eating, Winston, Hanzo and McCree arrived. Half an hour later, Reinhardt, Torbjörn, Fareeha and Angela. The later took a ration to bring it to Jack. Ultimately, Satya and Hana arrived.

Lúcio and Ester sat to eat with them,

“Will you come with us this afternoon?”, asked Hana with her mouth stuffed of mashed potatoes.

“Yes.”, answered Ester.

“Cool!”, exclaimed the young Korean girl.

“Hana, have mercy on her…”, said Lúcio. “Hana is a professional gamer.”, he explained to Ester.

“Really?”

“I was. But I still play.”

“Buah, I’ll do what I can, but my brother always said that it’s impossible to win a Korean…”

Hana laughed at the comment. Ester, only a little bit.

“It’s popular knowledge.”, she said, shrugging.

“Never say never!”, cheered her up the Brazilian.

Despite the cheerful and young atmosphere, the Catalan’s attention fell on the fourth person in the room.

“Hello.”, she saluted Satya.

The woman raised her gaze from her special meal.

“Hello.”, she responded, and it returned to it’s original place. But Ester’s eyes had already settled on her white arm, and Hana noticed.

“Hey, Satya, why don’t you show her what you can do with your arm? Sure you’ll leave her astonished!”

Ester moved her gaze all over her, waiting for someone to offer an explanation, but instead she received a sigh from Satya, who left her fork on the plate and rose her arms over the table.

The girl got muted with the first movement, which created a rectangle on Satya’s hand. She blinked, without anything productive to say.

With a second and third movements, all of them swift, the rectangle became a prism.

“Uoh!”, she did, letting her knife fall. “How do you do it?”

“With the prothesis, and a lot of study and training.”, she answered, trying to hide her pride.

“This isn’t your true arm?”, she asked, trying to have a better look.

“No. In fact, McCree has a prothesis in his left arm, if I am correct.”

“Really? I haven’t noticed…”, said Ester, trying to remember. Her attention changed focus.

“Can… Can I touch it?”

“Yes.”, Satya stretched her hand, offering her the figure.

The girl released a surprised sound when the figure got deformed when touching it. Her eyes were bright with emotion in front of the blue light, and her marvellous smile made Satya’s chest swell with pride.

“And you can do more things?”

“I can do anything.”

“Could you build bridges? Animals?”

“I would need blueprints and sketches, but yes. I could do it.”

“Coooooooooooooooool!”, sighed Ester in awe.

“I work with teleporters too.”

“That’s when Ester dropped her jaw.

“And they work?!”

“If they didn’t, I wouldn’t use them…”

Ester laughed at her own stupidity. The others joined her as discreetly as possible.

“Will you show them to me? Will you let me use one? Pleaaaaaseee!”

Satya stared at her, as if thinking.

“Yes, I guess it’s okay for you to use one with lucrative puroposes…”

“Cool! Thank you!”, exclaimed the girl.

“Come to my workshop whenever you want and we’ll do the test.”, smiled Satya.

 

When they were done with lunch, the younglings went to Hana’s room. More than a room, it looked like a storehouse of crisps and sodas.

It was fucking paradise.

Lúcio left a moment to pick up his tablet, and when he returned Hana has already started a fight game and has the tutorial ready for Ester. The young Korean opened a bag of crisps and three soda bottles.

It was the best afternoon Ester had in months. They took turns to fight each other at Lúcio’s music sound, eating and drinking at the speed of light to avoid losing the match. Anyone who has entered the room could have though they were on drugs.

“Geez, what a beat!”, Ester exclaimed above the music. “I love it!”

“Thanks!”, Lúcio smiled without moving his gaze from the screen. “I thought it might not be of your liking, since we are from different generations.”

“I get you. It happened mw with my grandparents.”

“Cool that you like music and videogames!”, commented Hana, popping a bubble gum.

Ester’s smile twisted down, but nobody noticed. Yes, she liked videogames, but she didn’t love them. She missed other things.

“Do you think they will let me have internet?”

The question distracted Hana, which helped Ester to win her first match.

“You don’t have internet?!”

“No.”

“That’s inhuman.”, jumped Lúcio. “Nobody has given you a tablet?”

“No.”

“Nor a terminal?”, tempted Hana.

“No.”

“This can’t stay like that.”, the Brazilian stood up. “As a social activist, I can’t allow an injustice like this to happen!”. He took Ester by her wrist and propped her up. “We are going right now to Winston’s place so he can give you one!”

The Catalan seemed uncomfortable with the situation.

“I don’t want to force things. I have been thinking about it and I understand why they don’t want me to know too many things…”

“This isn’t a reason to isolate you.”, said Hana. “Wait, I have an idea. Let’s go.”

 

“I can’t give her a tablet nor a terminal of her own.” Grumbled Winston. “It’s nothing personal, it’s just…”

“I know, don’t worry.”, answered Ester in a downcast way.

“Okay, then, how about this:”, continued Hana on her insistence. “allow her to use internet with someone’s supervision. That way she can use it without anybody worring about the content. Yeah?”

“Athena could do that.”

“If you put me a parental control for the internet, I’ll explode.”, Ester grunted. “I just want to… watch movies. Series. Animes. Comics. I don’t have enough mental strength to start watching sixty years of news and documentaries!”

“There are series and movies inspired by real events.”, Winston replied, who found himself assaulted by a desperation look from the girl and two disapproval gazes from Lúcio and Hana. “Alright, alright, internet with supervision… But Athena will analyse whatever you are watching to make sure nothing sensitive is mentioned.”

“Yeah!”, yelled Ester in an uncalculated explosion of happiness. She clung onto Lúcio’s shirt. “I wanna watch ALL _Star Wars_ movies! Marvel! DC! And _Boku no Hero Academia_! Gods, is all of _Shingeki no Kyojin_ out?! Did they ever finish _One Piece_?! I accept recommendations too, of course!”

“Something tells me we we’ll have a great movie marathon after dinner…”, laughed Lúcio.

“Why not now?”, asked Ester, impatient.

“Because it’s already dinnertime.”, said Hana.

The Catalan turned her head to lock at the clock projected on a screen. “Oh. Wow. Time flies.”

Lúcio and Hana smiled, satisfied.

 

After dinner they went to a common lounge with coaches and a wide scream. Genji, McCree, Reinhardt, Fareeha, Mei and Zarya joined the movie session. There was a brief discussion about what they should be watching first until Lúcio pointed out that it should be Ester’s choice. But it turned out that the girl had a null resistance to sleep, so when the first movie ended, she was already tired.

“We can keep it up tomorrow afternoon, or at night.”, suggested McCree.

“Yes!”, replied Ester, excited despite the weariness. She stood up from the coach with a jump. “I’ll go to see if I can find my room on my own. If I disappear: please send someone to find me.”, she laughed by herself.

“Shout out, we’ll be alert!”, laughed Reinhardt.

Ester said goodbye with a “good night” and a smile.

“This girl is made of something else. Too soft for my taste.”, grunted Zarya.

“Havin’ a bit of innocence around her won’t hurt.”, laughed McCree pulling a cigar from his pocket, but Fareeha blocked his action.

A moment of silence stood up.

“Bets she gets lost.”, jumped Genji.

“Me.”, spit Hana.

“Count me in.”, said McCree playing with his lighter.

“Me too.”, smirked Zarya.

“Ah, come on. Have a bit of faith in the girl…”, sighed Reinhardt.

He had barely ended the sentence, when a high pitched and familiar scream flooded the base.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guay - "Cool" in Castillian, also used by Catalans, despite having the equivalent word "Mola"


	5. Junkers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a small conversation in Spanish. Translations will be at the notes at the end.

Ester found the hallway to her room successfully. She had walked with a satisfied smile, wishing to dive under the sheets, when a light in the corridor flickered. She froze where she was. Those were lights from the future. Why did they flicker? She guessed no technology was perfect, no matter the development. She was about to take another step when she thought the floor had trembled. She rose her gaze. The bottom of the hallway was dark now.

And then the light flickered on again.

It was a character came from a nightmare. A huge man (or at least that was what her rational part was trying to impose, without much success) with a black mask similar to a pig’s face, holding onto a half-rusted hook the chain of which made a jingling with it’s movement. That thing on his back was a gun? Too late. She has been screaming for a couple seconds without realising.

 

The movie group stormed into the hallway alerted by the screams, now muffled, from the girl. The hulking man held her to his chest high with an arm and covered her mouth with the other hand. Ester shook her legs in the air, taken over by the panic, tears falling across her cheeks.

“Roadhog! Roadhog, leave her!”, a feminine and slightly raspy voice shouted from behind the giant. “Don’t you see she is a little girl? She’s not even armed!”

Roadhog realised a grunt and bended over to leave Ester on the ground, who made haste to get away a few steps to took some air in. Suddenly she encountered the sweet eyes from an old woman. She looked at her in the eye (the only one she had), without knowing how to react.

“Poor girl. You have had a bad scare!”, she exclaimed, hugging her.

Ester didn’t know who she was or what was she doing there, but she didn’t refuse the hug, still drying her tears.

“Who are you, by the way?”

“Mother, she is Ester. She is… a guest. Jack will fill you in. Ester, she is Ana Amari, my mother.”, Fareeha stood up to make the introductions.

“Pleased to meet you, youngling.”, she greeted her with a tender smile.

“T-Thank you… Likewise…”, she managed to answer. She directed her gaze to the brute, wondering if she has made an error at judging him.

At the other side of the corridor, people had relaxed notably.

“Well, then, we are back”, smiled Ana, hugging her daughter.

“Oi, what about this crowd?”, exclaimed a third voice.

A boy appeared limping. Ester took in his round eyes and gold hair, brushed upwards and a bit roasted in the tips. Slowly, she lowered her gaze to the cause of his limping: a peg leg.

“Oi! What are you looking at?!”

Ester rose her gaze abruptly.

“S-Sorry…”

“Haven’t seen your face round here! Who are ya?”

“Her name is Ester.”, intervened Ana with a cheerful tone, trying to relax the atmosphere.

The boy held her gaze, and suddenly, he started laughing. A constant, piercing and maniac laugh that got everyone on their nerves.

And Ester laughed.

The blonde boy stared at her with wide eyes, and laughed even harder. The girl bended forwards, holding her ribs to keep laughing. Tears dropped from her eyes.

A zip sounded in the hallway, and Lena appeared between Reinhardt and Lúcio.

“Hiya! Athena told me Ester has screamed, has something…? Ah, the Junkers are back!”

“Hello, Lena!”, greeted her Ana.

“Hello, Ana!”, the English woman turned her gaze to the show that were Ester and Junkrat.

“What is…?”

“Shhhh!”, hushed Lúcio. “I think they are harmonizing!”

Ester fell to her knees, still laughing, drying her tears as fast as she could. When finally it seemed that they had calmed down, the two of them looked at each other and started laughing again. The Catalan had to turn her back to try and quiet herself. In a minute she stood again, rubbing her eyes and her red cheeks.

“Your laugh is very funny!”, tempted the girl.

The boy seemed enthusiastic to take the hand she was offering him.

“My name is Junkrat!”, he introduced himself, shaking hands.

“Is Junkrat your birth name?”, she asked with soft voice, making sure she didn’t sound offensive.

He dropped her hand and took a step backwards, moving like a restless bird.

“Well, no. My name is Jamison Fawkes. But everybody calls me Junkrat.”

“Jaimie fits you very well.”, commented Ester.

Junkrat turned his head, without knowing where to rest his gaze.

A silence settled in the corridor. Ester yawned.

“Well. We should go an inform about the mission, right, boys?”, Ana said to the Junkers. “There has been a bit of a commotion, but nobody got hurt, so I don’t see the reason why so many people should be in the same hallway…”

“Right. ‘Night, gentlemen. Ladies.”, did McCree, leaving with a tip of his hat. The rest of the group followed him and dispersed.

Already recuperated, Ester took a moment to look at Roadhog and Junkrat.

A pig and a rat. The girl let out a sigh, half of resignation, half of nerves.

“Good night.”, she bid farewell with a tired smile, entering her room.

 

She woke up suddenly without any apparent reason. She turned to look at the clock. She has barely slept six hours, but no trace from sleep. She was as awake as if it were midday. She stood up. She felt her head dense, heavy. She couldn’t think about anything, and despite this she knew she had something to do. She dressed up in haste, remembering the dream of the previous night and her meeting with the Junkers, and tied her hair with a ponytail.

“Athena?”, she asked to the air.

“How may I help you?”, answered the robotic voice.

“Do you know where Jaimie is?”

“Jamison Fawkes is in Tests Room -2.”

“How do I get there?”

Athena guided her steps. Ester walked fast, occasionally running. She was tense, very tense. At last, the AI announced that the arrival to her destination was at her right. The girl entered at the anteroom abruptly, where Roadhog, Angela, Winston, Hanzo and Genji turned to look at her. She made her way to the window.

“What’s he doing?”, she asked dryly.

“He is trying a new bomb prototype…”, started explaining Winston.

“Tell him to stop.”, Ester cut him out.

It was Angela’s turn to say something to calm her down, but her voice found itself drowned by the beeping of an alarm. It came from the bomb in Junkrat’s hands.

“Oh. Ah, don’t worry, fellas. I think the timer is failing. It’s okay, I can disarm it…”, he explained, tucking to cables out of the structure. A red one and a blue one. Hanzo looked around. Ester wasn’t in the anteroom anymore. “…if I cut the red one…”, he continued, raising the pliers.

Ester charge prevented him from finishing the sentence. As fast as she could, the girl took the tool from him and throwed herself backwards, towards the bomb.

Nobody had time to shout. Not even Hanzo, who was already running to catch her, got there on time.

Ester cut the blue cable.

The beeping ceased.

Nothing exploded.

The girl released a sigh, dropping the pliers and her head.

She shouted an exclamation when Hanzo tugged her shirt to force her to stood up.

“How did you know?”, he asked her with distrustful eyes.

“Oi, oi, leave her be! I probably ow her an arm or a leg!”, said Junkrat, raising himself up. “But, how did you know?”

The others got where they were. Ester swallowed saliva, letting her eyes wander on the agents, thinking about the best way to explain it.

“This is going to sound weird and surrealist, but… I dreamed it.”

 

Ester had found herself dragged to what she assumed was a meeting room, judging by the great round table and the projector. Second consecutive day without having breakfast. Hurray…

“We can dismiss the idea that the temporal jump may have altered her brain in some way, and now she experiments visions in her subconscious…”, Winston was theorizing.

“Or maybe she knows about bombs.”, Hanzo cut him with his arms crossed.

Ester was tired of people talking about her.

“First of all: I don’t know about bombs. I haven’t done electronics in my life. And second: I already had dreams like these when I was at my time. It’s not something new.”, she answered in a bad mood sinking into the soft back of her chair.

“You hadn’t told us.”, said Jack with no trace of accusation in his voice.

“Would it had seemed like a serious conversation to you?”, she sighed.

There were look exchanges, shrugs and murmurs of agreement.

“Could you explain us how your dreams work?”, asked Winston with controlled politeness and curiosity.

Ester deviated her gaze for a moment. She didn’t have any intention to glorify herself.

“There’s not much difference from normal dreams. I mean, I don’t notice the difference. I dream, I wake up, I remember the dream, and in two days, weeks, months, or years, it happens.

“Always two?”, insisted Winston, noting something in his tablet.

“Yes. I wake up, day of calm, night, and the next day it happens.”

“Interesting. Do you dream about all kind of things?”

“Usually they always imply death.”, she answered rubbing her shoulder. “Individual deaths, illnesses… I think it was around 2013… A meteor fell on Russia. Two days earlier I dreamt that a meteor was coming to Earth, but they changed its course using Jupiter’s gravity… I guess nobody in that time knew how to do that.”

“So, sometimes the dreams are wrong?”

“Yes. Sometimes they’re wrong about the person, the place, sometimes they simply don’t happen. Like when I dream about the end of the world. Sometimes I am the one preventing the dreams to happen, like today.

“Oi, oi! Describe the dream! You had seen me before meeting?!”, jumped Junkrat, excited.

“No. When I slept, a rat toom out the red and blue cables. It cut the red and the bomb exploded.”

“Have you really dreamt that? Aren’t you making it up?”

“Fareeha!”, her mother told her off.

“Sorry for saying it, but I believe this is what we are all thinking.”

“She deactivated the bomb.”, pointed out Genji. “I believe her when she says she knows nothing of this field.”

The Shimada brothers exchanged a look, but Genji’s visor made it impossible to know what was going on between them.

“Believe me or not: it’s not my problem.”, sighed Ester.

“Hm.”, did Jack after a moment of silence. “I would like you to inform us if you dream of something relevant that you think that may happen.”

All the heads turned towards the old solider.

“We can’t be sure that you have prophetic dreams, but you are never ready enough.”

Ester nodded and raised a hand. “Can I ask for paper? I’d like to draw.”

“Uhm…”, did Mei. “Paper production was diminished as a measure against global warming. It’s not very abundant, because for a couple of decades the digital screens have been more used…”, she explained.

“Oh.”, lamented the girl inclining her head in a light expression of disappointment.

“We could give her a tablet.”, intervened Lena. “Without internet.”, she pointed out.

The Catalan’s eyes glowed.

“Hm…”, did Jack. “I don’t see any inconvenient.”

Ester didn’t scream un joy, but her smile filled the room.

“We are done.”, the ex-commandant dismissed them.

The girl exited the room with her own tablet in her hands clicking all the icons, exploring applications. Satisfaction flooded her when her fingers noticed a tactile pen encrusted at the back of the device. With a zip, Lena appeared at her side.

“Hiya!”, she greeted.

“Hello!”

“How are you doing? Yesterday I didn’t see you in all day.”

“Well. I talked to Zenyatta and Genji. At the afternoon I was with Hana and Lúcio. And I have internet under supervision.”

“That’s… good?”

“It’s something.”, she shrugged, opening a recording app. She turned it off. She wasn’t interested.

“Do you need help?”, Lena offered.

“I’d like to try alone, but I’m not declining your help.”, half-laughed Ester.

The woman returned her a broken snicker.

“Listen, could we…? Can we talk?”, she said, stopping.

“Yes.”, answered Ester with a suspicious tone.

Lena turned a corner, gesturing her to follow her, but the Catalan didn’t understand why, if there was no one in the hallway… Despite this she entered to the small room with her.

“I warn you this is gonna be a strange conversation.”, Lena tried to joke. Ester remained on her feet, near the door, in a clear sign of mistrust. “It’s that… I wanted to apologise for putting you in this mess, for dragging you away from your time, but when I think more about it… I’m not sorry. I’m not sorry, because you were falling. And I want to ask you, and I want to hear you say it, and I want to believe you, so please, tell the truth. Ester. Where you suiciding?”

The girl turned her gaze abruptly. She swallowed. What was the point in denying it? From the beginning she had knew Lena would pull out conclusions. And she didn’t have the energy to elaborate a convincing lie.

“Yes.”, she answered with a whisper.

The English seemed hurt.

“Why?”

Ester squeezed her lips so tears wouldn’t escape her wet eyes.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”, she shook her head. “I want to leave.”

“One last thing, and I let you go. Do you still want to suicide?”

They stared at each other in silence. The youngest squeezed the tablet against her chest, like if that could protect her.

“I don’t know.”, she answered.

And she left.

 

“Hanzo, stop being such a paranoid! Poor girl has done nothing wrong to you!”, Genji told him off with low voice.

“Excuse me if I think you are making a mistake by letting in someone who you know so little about so easily…”, retorted the elder brother.

“Oh? You mean like you?”, answered back the cyborg.

“It is not the same.”, answered dryly Hanzo.

“She is a good girl, Hanzo.”, sighed Genji. “You should have seen her talking to the Sensei. She was so afraid that we would take offense…! And how much her eyes shined, with the movie! I tell you: she knows how to listen. If you would spend time with her, I am certain you would like her. And you would see she doesn’t have bad intentions.”

Hanzo breathed deeply, closing his eyes for a moment.

“Given the case that I… made this effort for knowing her. Do you think she would accept, after all the mistrust I have set upon her?”

“Well, that you distrust her doesn’t mean that the feeling is mutual. You can talk to her with more people around. No, wait, I know! She was interested by my sword. Why don’t you invite her to try your bow?”

Hanzo stared at his brother like if he had committed the greatest offense in the world.

“Stom Bow is a weapon, not a toy!”

“Yeah, I know. I can say the same from my katana, and I let her anyway. Hanzo, make an effort. She is a child, not an enemy.”, finished Genji putting a hand on his brother’s shoulder, before disappearing in a corner.

 

After calming herself down, Ester went to a common lounge with wide windows, a large table, coaches and shelves. The conversation with Lena had left her without any attitude on socializing, so she focused on learning how to draw with the tablet. The pen’s precision was very satisfying, and the zoom, very useful. A whistle startled her to the point of making her jump.

“ _Uo, uo, tranquila! Dibujas bien…_ ”, observed McCree, sitting beside her. “We don’t have many artists ‘round here…”

Ester looked at him, not really willing to strike up a conversation.

“Drawing relaxes me.”, she answered, focusing on the tablet again.

“Do your thing. Like if I weren’t here.”

But Ester couldn’t do like if he wasn’t there. Jesse’s presence was rough, solid. The tobacco smell disguised the alcohol’s stink, and it made her nervous that he was staring while she drew. She left the tactile pen on the table and looked at him, leaning her chin on a hand.

“Do you always dress as a cowboy?”, she asked him.

“Yep.”, he answered with no trace of annoyance in his voice.

“Why?”

“It’s my style.”

“Ah. I like your hat.”

That comment made a satisfied smile appear on the man’s face.

“Why, thank you.”

“And your beard.”, added Ester. “I know how to appreciate beard well took care of.”, she laughed.

He laughed briefly too.

“Aren’t you stressed, closed in here?”, he asked her. “You been here like a week already and you have never left the buildin’.”

“No. No, not yet. Iguess that because this is new to me, the place still doesn’t bore me. Anyway, I have never felt the need to go outside. I’m more of a sedentary.” She made a pause. “I like your breastplate. Why are the tubes for?”

“Decoration.”, laughed McCree.

Ester keep lowering her eyes, though his answer hadn’t convinced her much, but she thought that maybe it was a trend she didn’t understand.

“What is BAMF?”

“Don’tcha know?”, he smirked, amused.

“Something tells me M and F go for Motherfucker, but I’m not catching the B and the A…”

“Badass.”, he answered with a wider smirk.

Ester stifled a shameful laugh and covered her face with her hand.

McCree seemed to be enjoying that.

The sound of something heavy being deposited on the table caused the girl to retreat her hand. Her eyes opened wide. She pinned her feet to the floor to move away with the chair.

On the table rested a huge revolver.

The cowboy studied her reaction.

“Don’t worry, it has the safety on. This is Peackeeper. You can touch it, if you wanna.”

Ester bent over to look at it, but she kept her fists clenched and pressed against her chest.

And she saw the handle. She narrowed her eyes. It couldn’t be…

She loosened up a hand and pointed it.

“Is this supposed to be a boot?”, she asked suspiciously.

“He he…”, he laughed.

Ester turned her gaze away, stifling a laugh that escaped through her idiot smile.

“ _Hòstia puta_. This is so childish and stupid, that it’s even cool.”

McCree laughed again.

“You can touch it, hum?”, he offered again.

“Not feeling like it. Could you put it away? It’s making me nervous.”. Jesse stored it in his holster again. “Do you always carry it?”

“Never know. Cops could fall on me any time.”

“Why?”

“I have a reward on my head.”, he answered with some kind of pride.

“Ah, really? Why?”

“Some crimes are attributed on me.”

“And did you commit them?”

“Some yes, some no.”

Ester tensed a bit, studying his expression. She couldn’t tell if he was lying or not. Did it matter? She had lived with him for a bunch of days now, and nothing in his behaviour had made her think he was a bad person.

“Hm.”, she did as an answer.

“You wanna know how much they offer for my head?”, he asked with an interesting smile.

“Not really, but I get the feeling you will tell me anyway…”

“Sixty million.”

Ester didn’t manifest any reaction. After two seconds of silence she picked up the tactile pen and wrote the number on her tablet. First a sixty, then three zeroes more. Half a second pause, three zeroes more.

“Like this?”

“Yeah?”, answered McCree, deeply amused by the fact that the girl had to wrote the number. He didn’t expect Ester’s reaction though. “Why are you laughing?”

“Dude, that’s super exaggerated! What are you accused of, blowing up the UNO headquarters?”

“Nah, the omics did that.”

The Catalan hushed abruptly.

“It was a long time ago.”, he rushed to clarify. “They reconstructed it.”

Ester turned her gaze and kept on drawing. A guilty feeling invaded McCree.

“Hey, um… You haven’t offended me, if that’s what bothers you…”

She shook her head.

“The UNO will explode. If I go back to my time, I know the UNO will explode.”, she said with shaky voice.

McCree understood he had screwed up. He opted for a change of subject.

“Do you miss your time? Your home?”

The girl sighed.

“Yes. No. It isn’t bad in here. There are weird things. The lack of connection with the outside is unnerving. I am not allowed to watch the news, but it’s not like I think I would understand them, without context. I miss my cat. I miss my mother’s cooking. I miss my fluffy toys. Strangers make me nervous, but I don’t want to be alone either. I’m scared. I’m scared all the time.”, she ends up sobbing. “I’m scared of knowing what happened, I’m scared of not knowing what happened. It enrages me to don’t understand what’s going on around me. It enrages me to be like a little girl. It enrages me to depend on someone!”

She had to drop the pen because her hands where shaking.

“Hey, hey…”, whispered Jesse, settling his arm on her shoulders and pressing her against him. Ester started crying. “It’s normal to feel this way. And it’s true: we aren’t makin’ it any easier to you to integrate yourself, hiding information from you… Maybe it’s a subject we should talk about with Winston and Jack.” Jesse let the girl vent. “Listen, this afternoon is my turn to go buy groceries. Would ya like t’accompany me? We will go to town. This way you can walk around, breath some fresh air… You’ll see how’s the world now.”

“Will they let me?”, she asked, drying her tears with her wrists.

“Yeah, I’m sure they will.”, answered McCree, caressing her hair before leaving.

 

Ester kept drawing. Ana dropped in the room, wanting to properly introduce herself. She brought cookies.

The Egyptian woman captivated Ester. She didn’t had any problem telling her about her life: that she was Overwatch’s second in command, a sniper; presumed dead, who decided to return to action. All of that with a soft and constant tone, maybe a bit raspy.

“Jack explained me where you come from. I am sorry you have found yourself dragged… Is there something I can do to help you?”, she offered.

She turned her eyes away, doubting. Should she refuse the offer or do as she did with McCree and let it all go?

“You don’t have to answer now.”, continued Ana after a moment of silence.

“ _Vale._ ”, Ester accepted. “Thank you.”

“One last thing… I wouldn’t get too close to the Junkers if I were you. Especially if you have made friends with Zenyatta.

“Jaimie and Roadhog? Why?”, she asked with certain surprise.

“They… Let’s say they have quite a wild story. And they don’t have a good opinion about omnics.”

“Why?”

“Um… Now I’ll explain you an historical event, and it isn’t very nice. Are you sure you want to know?”

The girl nodded.

“Junkrat and Roadhog are Autralians. The omnium there exploded, and the region was irradiated…”

“Australia blew up?!”

“A part of it, yes.”

“And the omnics did it?”

“The circumstances were… mysterious.”

“It isn’t clear.”, Ester wanted to be certain.

Ana shook her head.

Nobody said anything for a few seconds.

“I like Jaimie. I like how he laughs. He is very thin, isn’t he? He should eat more. Roadhog scares me a bit, but I believe it is because we started on the wrong foot? I don’t know. He didn’t tell me his name.”

“Roadhog doesn’t speak much. Not to say not at all. I have never heard his voice, in fact. But don’t trust them too much. Your instincts weren’t wrong when screaming back in the hallway.”

“Hm.”, did Ester.

“Hey.”, Ana called her attention. “If you ever need anything and Jack tells you no, come to ask it to me and I’ll say yes.”

Ester laughed softly.

 

“Woah.”, was the only thing capable of saying when McCree started the truck’s engine and it inclined its wheels, floating silently.

“Don’t get spooked!”, he smiled. Ester hadn’t realized she has stepped back. Suddenly she was excited and nervous and a bit distrustful.

The sound of a metallic door swinging open warned them that someone had entered the hangar where they were.

“Ah, Hanzo!”, McCree greeted him. “Come, we’re leavin’!”

Ester and Hanzo locked gazes. The two of them turned their heads to stare at the gunslinger with narrowed eyes. There wasn’t any reaction from his part, so they found themselves forced to look at each other again.

“Hello…”, saluted the girl shyly, half afraid of a possible attack.

She expressed her intimidated estate openly, and that hurt Hanzo.

“Hello.”, he greeted with a more relaxed tone that allowed Ester to relax a bit.

The Catalan climbed on the back seats of the truck, letting the elders sit on the front. She remained silent, appreciating the movement fluency of the vehicle, the lack of potholes, noise and traction. She watched through the window, but not the landscape, but the ground.

“How many years since cars float?”, she asked.

“Not much.”, McCree answered cautiously.

“It must have costed a lot of perfection.”, she observed. “Is everything like this, now? Cars, motorbikes, vans, trains?”

“Yeah: like that, or similar systems. There’s still wheeled vehicles, but they are antiquities and are very expensive.”

“Where are we going to buy?”

“The market.”

“Are there still markets?”

“Um, yes, of course.”

“On my time people used to think that in the future everybody would order their groceries online.”

“You can’t choose the exact product you want online.”

“ _Ja_.”

“Furthermore, people normally buys more when they go shopping. Doing online or telephonic orders, you follow a list, without looking at anything else. That is not convenient for sellers, nor big nor small.”, commented Hanzo.

“Well. I am glad you can still go to buy on live and people haven’t become even more sedentary than my time… It’s not like I have something to say in the matter, anyway.”

She changed her attention from the road to the landscape. They had already spent quite the time on the road. Furtive trees passed, but being a dry climate, most of the vegetation was quite small: bushes and brown weeds, sign of lack of water.

“Are we far?”

“There’s a long route, yes. You can’t build a semi-secret military base right beside an urban center.”, answered Hanzo.

Ester was surprised that it was him who answered. His comments weren’t friendly, but they weren’t attacks either. Neutrality was alright for her.

After five more minutes of travel at a speed which the girl suspected wasn’t legal, they saw the first buildings. She shrunk in her seat. The men noticed.

“Hey.”, McCree called her. “It’s okay, if you wanna stay in the truck.”

The idea was tempting, but Ester forced herself to give the hard answer.

“No. I want to do this at some point. The earlier, the better.”

And they finally parked.

Ester got off and stood still. Anyone seeing her could tell she was nervous, probably because she was in a new place. She looked like a scared deer. She didn’t had the feeling that the buildings has changed much. Maybe because they were at the historical center and they had opted for restoration rather than modernization. But all cars floated. She wondered if the index of death by accident had augmented or diminished.

She passed to look at people. It seemed that the dressing style had changed a bit, but she didn’t know how to describe it. There were omnics walking through the streets too, but they were few.

It was market day: there were tents where people sold fruits, cold meats, fresh and salty fish, cheeses, bread.

Everything was relatively normal. Why was she so overwhelmed?

“You doin’ okay there?”, asked McCree, startling her.

Ester inhaled deeply.

“I’m scared of getting lost.”, she said with shaky voice. “Can I…? Can I take your hand?”

The request surprised him, but he offered her his arm. Ester held onto his forearm, forcing herself to not get as close as she was wishing to.

Hanzo stared at her. Back at the truck, he had decided that he would take care of watching the girl to make sure she wouldn’t escape, but… She was shaking. Ester was shaking, and that kind of shake couldn’t be faked. The man’s posture and expression relaxed.

 

They went together to the covered market. They went from store to store buying wholesale groceries.

“We have to have food for eighteen persons.”, half laughed McCree when he saw the girl’s face.

Slowly, very slowly, Ester let go of the cowboy’s arm. She dared to turn a corner on her own to go search for some fruit. She got a little nervous when noticing it was taking her a lot of time to pick it up, but she calmed down when she saw Hanzo watching her from the other side of the corridor. When she returned with him with the bag of peaches in her hand, she held onto his arm without saying anything. He blinked, perplexed, but didn’t back away.

“Don’t cha want anything for you, darlin’?”, McCree asked her. “I have to pick up a couple more items, but you and Hanzo have time to do a tour.”

Ester shrugged and looked up to meet the eyes of the Japanese man.

“If you are okay with it…”

“Of course.”, he answered.

Jesse waved goodbye, agreeing that they would meet at the truck.

“Can we go outside? I need air.”, she sighed.

Hanzo accompanied her to the exit in silence, and they walked together the surrounding streets. Like when with McCree, the girl progressively let go, despite checking regularly that her companion was still there. She neared a tend and gestured Hanzo to come closer.

“Can you buy it for me?”, she asked, something a rounded brown thing.

“What is it? Bread?”

“ _Pa de pagès._ ”, she nodded. “Like the one from my homeland.”

That last sentence spurned up a spark of empathy. The melancholy and nostalgia in the girl’s voice was the same that rooted deep inside Hanzo, so he accepted buying her the bread alongside with a branch of tomatoes (after a brief discussion about why she wanted those tomatoes if they had already bought others bigger and brighter, to what Ester had answered that those were different, in spite of her failed attempt at finding the right word in English to define them). The man paid in cash while the youngling neared the bread to her nose to smell it, and pressed her fingers against the rind to hear it crunch.

Hanzo stared at her.

“It’s a good bread.”, she smiled. “Do we have olive oil?”

No, they hadn’t, and none of the tents sold it. Ester proposed to look for it in supermarkets, because she strongly believed that not mattered how many years passed there had to be olive oil in all corners of the Iberic peninsula. She stood on her tip toes to search with her sight: it was late and people had gone outside to enjoy the evening’s fresh air, so now there was a crowd on the street.

The girl saw a lighten sign stuffed in a corner of a modest street and she went for it.

Effectively, it was a supermarket. She saluted the man in the register in Castilian and English, and he kindly signed her where the oils where.

Despite this, she got a bit lost.

Nobody would have ever said that a person would smile so much to a bottle of olive oil.

“ _Producto de proximidad, ¿eh?_ ”, a voice commented by her side.

Ester rose her head abruptly, surprised. A dark-skinned girl and half close-cropped hair smiled at her from behind the sunglasses that covered her eyes completely. She vented herself with a cap that matched with her white tank top and her sandals. She wore black leggings and had a Mexican accent.

“ _¡Sí! Si no lo has probado, te lo recomiendo. Es el alma de la dieta mediterránea._ ”, she smiled at her.

The tourist returned the smile and leaned her free hand at the cropped side of her head.

“ _Y, dime, ¿eres de por aquí?”_ , she asked her.

“ _Ah, no. Yo soy de la zona de Barcelona. Estoy aquí… de vacaciones.”_

 _“Ya veo…”_ , she answered, crossing her arms. “ _En fin, ha sido un placer conocerte. Oh, y: lamento lo que pasó en Barcelona. ¡Sois muy Fuertes!_ ”, she added, settling the cap on her head and raising her thumbs.

“Ester!!!”, Hanzo’s shout thundered in the shop and interrupted the Catalan’s emerging question.

She turned her head and lifted her arm so he could see her.

“Here!”, she yelled.

When she turned again, the Mexican girl wasn’t there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> McCree: "Woah, woah, easy there! You draw well..."  
> Ester: "Hòstia puta", equivalent to "Holy shit" in Catalan, also used in Castilian but with no accent mark, literally: "Bitch/bitchy holy bread"  
> Ester: "Vale", "Okay" in Castilian  
> Ester: "Ja". It can mean "I already know" or "I understand" in Catalan. 'Ja' would be the word 'already' in these sentences  
> Ester: "Pa de pagès", literally "Farmer's bread". If you're curious, you can see images here: https://www.google.es/search?q=pa+de+pag%C3%A8s&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjW4fGmrq3XAhVIbhQKHf3vCqMQ_AUICigB&biw=1360&bih=637  
> The most popular kind of tomatoes to use with pa de pagès is "Tomàquets de penjar", "Hanging Tomatoes". That's the word Ester couldn't find at the moment  
> Sombra: "Proximity product, huh?"  
> Ester: "Yes! If you haven't tasted it, I recommend it to you. It's the soul of the Mediterranean diet."  
> Sombra: "So, tell me: are you from around here?"  
> Ester: "Ah, no. I am from Barcelona's area. I am here... on vacation."  
> Sombra: "I see..." "Well, it's been nice to meet you. Oh, and: I am sorry about what happened in Barcelona. You guys are very strong!"


	6. Archery and dragons

The adventure costed her a scolding, but Hanzo seemed more relieved of having found her than angry for having lost her. He agreed to buy her the oil and they went back to the truck, where McCree was already waiting for them. Ester commented how glad she was that she forced herself to go out. She hadn’t realized she was so afraid of the unknown outside. They went back to the base, but she was too tired to help with dinner, so she left herself melt in a coach. She fell asleep, and they decided not to wake her up.

 

_The sea waves crushing against a cliff. The railroad tracks. Cut arteries. The railroad tracks. A rope tied to a tree. A beam. A dark alley. The pavement, and a car’s wheels. The railroad tracks. Wolves. The cannon of a gun against a skull. Water, dark water. Colourful pills. The railroad tracks._

_So many options…_

She hadn’t had dinner.

It was perfect to make herself the breakfast she had wishing for for weeks.

She cut a slide of her bread, shaped bean alike. The perimeter was covered with crust, but the wide inside was pure center. She took one of the soaking tomatoes, cut it in half and smashed the pulp against the bread while rubbing it lightly, turning the white center to a pink colour, with the tomato’s seeds spread all over without any order. To finish, she took the bottle of olive oil and added it a generous stream.

She took a plate, went to her room to change her shirt and wash her face and picked up her tablet to go have breakfast outside.

At the hallway, she crossed her path with Genji.

“Yo!”, he greeted her. “Have you slept well?”

“Like a baby!”, smiled Ester, with the plate in one hand and her tablet under her arm. “But I’m starving now.”

“Where are you going with the plate?”, he asked, stopping to keep talking to her.

“Outside, to have some fresh air. And you? Are you going to meditate with Zenyatta?”

“Yes, but first I will go to stop by at Doctor Ziegler’s place.”

“Alright. See you, then!”, she waved, holding his gaze while she restarted her march.

He waved goodbye raising two fingers to his helm height.

 

Genji continued his wat to Angela’s medbay, where he found her instrument maintenance.

“Good morning, Doctor Ziegler!”, he greeted her cheerfully from the door.

She rose her head and smiled upon seeing him.

“Hello, Genji! How can I help you?”, she asked, turning on her stool to face him.

“I wanted to say hello…”, he started.

They spoke as long as they could about light matters, but as usual, the subject that united them came up.

“If you ever need a revision…”, she insinuated, a bit ashamed, maybe with a guilty feeling that, in spite of being lighter, she still dragged.

“I would be more than honoured to be in your capable hands.”, the cyborg answered bending in a reverence of esteem and respect.

A silence fell between the two of them. Genji remembered the fight with his brother as a bad experience for both of them, while Angela repeated the operation that she had conducted on Genji again and again inside her head.

It had been a miracle that she could save him. That Blackwatch had received the hint. The Doctor had never got them to tell her where the info came from.

“I have crossed ways with Ester while coming here.”, said Genji to change the subject. He feared he might have upset the doctor.

“Ah, really?”, she answered in a brighten up tone.

“Yeah. She was going to the viewpoint. I think she already has a favourite place…”

Angela tensed.

“Alone?”

Genji hesitated a bit. “Uh, yes.”

Angela stood up suddenly and put her hands on his shoulders. There was worry with traces of panic in her eyes.

“Genji, she can’t be let out alone!”, she tried not to yell, biting her lip.

“Why not? She is not a suspect, and she has permission to go where she wants, hasn’t she?”

Swallowing hard, the doctor decided to reveal the information, despite being herself who had recommended the contrary days before.

“Genji.”, she said, pressing her fingers in his shoulders. “She is a suicide.”

The cyborg disappeared in a green flash.

 

Genji went over the gardens at maximum speed. He did a few sweeps, making sure of having checked all the corners, before running to the view point to examine the rocks against which the waves cracked. A zip startled him.

“Angela told me!”, said Lena. “Have you seen her?!”

“No.”

The British brought two fingers to her hear.

“Alright, guys, don’t panic but it’s a little bit urgent that we find Ester right now…”, she explained over the communicator, trying to stay calm.

Lots of questions assaulted her, all of them from different people, all of them asking the same.

“I… I’m not sure I can tell you but it’s important that we make sure that she is alright! Please, search for her!”, she exclaimed before disappearing in front of a blue streak of light.

Genji stood still for a moment, analysing. When they crossed paths, Ester was holding a plate. A person who is going to kill themselves doesn’t make themselves breakfast, did they? Either way, he couldn’t see the plate anywhere. He opened a private channel to share his doubts with Angela and Lena.

Despite the new information, the search ended up being frenetic. Those who were searching calmly got nervous upon seeing the urgency in Lena, Jack, Winston, Angela and Reinhardt’s faces. Ana walked over with an aggravated expression. The last register Athena had from the girl was the image of her going out to the gardens, but she wasn’t there. They have already checked up five times.

“She left?”, asked Hana, puzzled.

“It can’t be, right? I mean, where would she go?”, added Lúcio, feeling a bit guilty.

“Home.”, answered Zatya.

Everybody got tense.

Hanzo, for his own, decided to get back to the beginning. He walked away from the group through the hallway where Ester and his brother had crossed. He exited the glass and white metal door, as Athena’s videos showed that the girl had done.

The midday sun burned hot. Hanzo looked upwards upon hearing the rustle of the leaves. It came to his mind to climb to the building’s roof. Maybe this way he would have a new perspective. He neared the drainage system’s plumb and started climbing, muffled groans escaping his lips while ascending in controlled jolts. He settled his hands on the white roof and lifted himself up.

 

Ester went outside and settled under a tree with her plate and her tablet. She planned on drawing the landscape, but she found out, as she did every time she tried, that she couldn’t eat and draw at the same time, and her hunger had priority.

It was hot. The wind shook the tree’s crown, but it barely got close to the ground. The girl took a look to the building’s wall. The drainage system’s plumbs hadn’t gone out of style. She considered what she was planning for some instants, and finally concluded that she wouldn’t do anything bad. She stood, settled the tablet on her back, held by her pants. She took her slice of bread in her mouth, brushed the crumbs away from the plate and secured it with the tablet.

And she climbed the plumb as if she were climbing a short stair. She enjoyed the taste of the oil and the texture of the bread in her mouth while climbing with bared hands and foot. She never slipped, and the plumb didn’t even shake. As she thought, it was a lot more stable than what she was used to.

 _Bufar i fer ampolles_.

She rushed to retrieve the plate from her back and put the bread on it again, which was already breaking, keeping the first bite in her mouth. She raised her head. A nice breeze blew in there. She left the tablet in front of her and took out the earpiece that Hana had handed her. She got it on and went to the music application to listen to the songs that Lúcio had sent, and she even opened another one with a platform game that the Korean had recommended her. And there she stayed: eating, listening to music and playing.

 

“Ester!”, Hanzo yelled at her, plugging an earpiece out with a hard tug.

“What?!”, she answered in a bad mood. He had startled her and now a scrawl crisscrossed the train that she had drawn.

Lúcio’s music emanated from the device.

Hanzo sighed and took two of his fingers to his communicator.

“Hanzo here. I have found her, she is okay.”, he half grunted before looking at the girl again. Yes, she was physically well. Maybe she would have some sunburns from being so much time under the sun. It was clear that she had been too submerged in her distractions and she hadn’t heard the commotion she had caused. Next to her, she had a plate with a piece of bread crust, stained by the oil’s yellow colour. “We have been searching for you for hours! We thought you might have left!”

Ester left the tablet and pointed her palm’s upwards, shrugging. “And where the hell would I go?”, she said in a tone that let him now that his supposition was improbable, if not impossible, and furthermore, stupid.

Hanzo had to recognize that she was right. The man freed a grunt before turning to the roof’s limit. “Come now. Get down and apologise to the others for the inconveniences you have caused…”

The girl didn’t like a bit that he told her what to do, but she picked up her things and followed him, stuffing the last piece of bread in her mouth. At their feet, there was practically everyone who lived at base, except Roadhog and Junkrat. Hanzo presented her with a dramatical gesture.

“Hello.”, Ester greeted after swallowing the bread, ignoring him. Without warning, she put her tablet and plate in her pants and descended the plumb.

She landed on her feet with a swift movement, soundless.

“What’s up?”

“’What’s up’?!”, scolded her Angela. “Where were you?!”

“Up there.”, she answered with no change in her mood, pointing where Hanzo stood. “I was listening to music. Playing. Drawing.”, she made a pause and took out the tablet and the plate from their hideout. “Eating.”, she glanced up at Lena, letting her know she suspected of her.

“Dude, we didn’t know where you were!”, exclaimed Lúcio, hugging her.

“Your music is so epic I become unaware. But that little problem would be solved if I had a communicator, or internet connection in my tablet… This way, Athena could know where I am.”, she smiled with slyness. She even looked at those who she realised knew what was she doing when Lena rescued her: “Well, it’s not like if you need to know where I am always, don’t you? It’s not like I’m going to kill myself or anything…”

Although most part of the group took it as a joke, those who knew were in a sweat. Maybe the girl wasn’t as innocent as she seemed…

“You will have a communicator.”, Jack agreed carefully.

“Guay!”, she smiled. “I’m going to wash the plate. See you at lunch. And sorry for the inconvenience, I didn’t mean to scare you!”, she added, already leaving.

She noticed somebody was following her, but she didn’t turn around until she felt the presence at her side. She looked up at Hanzo with the question written in her eyes.

“I wanted to… apologise for scaring you. I’m sorry I ruined your draw…”

“Ah.”, she did, quite surprised. “It’s nothing. It’s not your fault. Actually, I only have to click here and everything will be solved. I shouldn’t have replied to you that way, I was… irritated because of something else.”

They kept walking in silence, but neither of them showed signs of discomfort.

“Do you like trains?”, asked the man.

“Yes. No. Not much. I liked a train rail. The R1. The rails are right next to the sea, and go from Barcelona to the north. When I was little I used to take it with my family. The view was always beautiful…”

“Is the train that you have drawn the one you took?”

“Um. No. No, the train and the carriages where very ugly!”, she exclaimed, turning on the tablet and searching for the draw. With a simple click she erased the invading line. “I made up the train, but the station and the rail are as I remember.”, she explained, offering him the device.

Hanzo took it carefully. The picture showed the two platforms of the station, with the view of the sea behind them. The train was just arriving at the station, leaving the rails on sight.

“Are those the rails?”, he asked, pointing them.

Ester leaned to look at the draw. “Yes. Aren’t they like these anymore?”

“No. There’s only one rail now. And trains float, like cars.”

“Oh.”, she did, and seemed to dive into a world of thoughts.

Hanzo took advantage of the moment of silence.

“Listen, I was wondering if… you would like to do some archery?”

He captured the girl’s attention satisfactorily.

“Genji told me you were interested in his katana. I am an archer, and it is remarkably less dangerous to an inexpert to use a bow than a sword. I wondered if you would like to try it out, to pass the time.”

“Yeah!”, she answered with bright eyes. “Yes, I would really like to! When?”

“This afternoon?”

“Guay!”, she smiled before diverting to the kitchen.

Hanzo returned her a light smile. Soon he could judge if the girl had experience with weapons.

 

Ester exited Satya’s workshop dizzy. She had gone to see her after lunch to try one of her teletransporter, but despite the warnings from the woman she hadn’t thought that the disorientation caused by the space change could be so brutal. She had entered the device excited and exited totally frozen: her sensed trying to understand and process why all the information they were receiving changed suddenly. She hadn’t poked, luckily, but she has needed to sit down and close her eyes.

“The first times are always the worse. If you want to, you can try it gain whenever you feel like it. It’s the only way to get used to it.”, Satya had told her with a comforting smile.

Now, stumbling, she tried to remember where was she supposed to meet Hanzo.

Fareeha found her on top of the stairs.

“What are you doing here?”, she asked, bowing her head slightly.

It took a couple of seconds for Ester to answer.

“I have to go to a training room, but I just teleported for the first time in my life and I strongly believe that if I try to get down the stairs I will surely fall over…”, she explained, looking at the obstacle in front of her as if it was a great threat.

The woman huffed, muffling a laugh.

“Poor you. Come, take my arm.”, she offered.

Ester held onto it and together they started the descent. An uncomfortable silence made its presence.

“Your mother is very kind.”, commented the girl, to say something.

“She is an inspiration for a lot of people, yes.”, Fareeha answered with a weird tone.

Ester couldn’t have said if it was sincere or there where traces of resentment in there. “May I ask why are you going to train?”, she changed subject.

“Hanzo will let me use his bow.”

“Really?”, she seemed quite surprised. “Wow. I thought that thing was untouchable. First month he was here he didn’t take it out, even when going to the toilet.

Ester laughed when imagining the scene.

“Hanzo is new here?”, she asked.

“Well, yes. Not much more than I, actually. When Winston activated the Recall, old operatives started coming back. I already knew about Overwatch, and I had very clear that I wanted to be a part of it, so I joined. It seems like Genji invited Hanzo. More people showed up, like Zenyatta, Lúcio, Hana, Satya. You.”

Ester felt touched for the last addition, but she freed a nervous laugh.

“I don’t thing you can count me as a member… I have the feeling that, being Overwatch a military organization, I can’t do much to help…”

“That has an easy solution. When you get tired of playing archery, come get me and I will teach you to really shoot.”, she smiled.

That offer surprised her enough for the Catalan to freed her from her disorientation. She let loose of Fareeha’s arm to refuse with her hands.

“No, no!”, she exclaimed. Seeing the confused expression in Fareeha’s face, she found herself obligated to explain better: “I am grateful for the vote of confidence, really, but I don’t like weapons. I don’t like guns. I have no interest in learning how to use one.”

“Hm.”, she did, finishing going down the stairs. “I understand. You are like Angela.”, she nodded with a faint smile. She rose her head and stared at Ester with a serious expression. “But the world we live in isn’t safe. In the case you stay here, it’s highly probable that you’ll have to face Talon, Los Muertos, anti-omnics, omnics… As much as you chose to leave Overwatch (which you have all the right to), you would end up stumbling upon one of those conflicts. And, given the case Winston finds a way to return you home, you’ll have to live the Omnic Crisis, Ester.”, she made a pause for the girl to digest the information. “Do you have any idea of how horrible it was?”

“Ehm, no, because nobody tells me anything. Apart from Australia blowing up. And the UNO blowing up…”, she cut herself, realising of what was she saying. Her expression showed so unease that made Fareeha feel bad about it.

“My offer still stands. I understand your point of view, but I think we all here would be calmer if we knew you know how to use a gun.”

“Ja… Thank you. I’ll think about it. And thanks for accompanying me!”, she waved goodbye with a little smile over her shoulder.

“You are welcome!”, she answered, going back upstairs.

 

When she entered the room, Hanzo was practising. He wore clothing she had never seen before and left all of his arm and shoulder uncovered. She guessed it was typical Japanese clothing. She stood there, staring, appreciating his posture and precision, until she realised that the archer hadn’t noticed her presence. She would have to consider putting shoes on…

“Hello!”, she saluted from the door.

Hanzo disguised his shock and turned around, lowering the bow, to return the greeting.

“Come, stand here. I am going to retrieve the arrows.”, he said, offering her his bow.

Ester took it with extreme carefulness, studying all of it’s details with wide eyes. It was heavier of what she thought, and she already sensed that she would have problems to aim. It was clear that she couldn’t hold it up for long. She thought the handle was a bit weird, but practical, after all.

Hanzo returned to her side. “Try it, let’s see how you do.”

He offered her an arrow. Ester took it and stared at it. At the end of the arrow’s body, further behind the plumes, there was a metallic piece she had never seen before, but by logic she imagined it was what had to make contact with the string.

After a couple seconds of vacillation, she tried to put it in place.

“Like this?”, she asked, just to be sure.

He, who was already watching her doings, neared the girl from behind. He put a hand to the bow’s handle, on top of Ester’s, and with two fingers from the other hand he pushed the arrow against the string until a light click sounded. He backed off, making a few steps backwards to sit down in a metallic chair.

“Thanks.”, she smiled before turning towards the mannequins.

She made an effort to keep the bow elevated, stretched the string, aimed and shot.

The arrow bounced on the floor, at the mannequin’s foot, but Hanzo didn’t make a comment nor noise that gave to understand that he would mock her. Actually, he even seemed pleased.

“Your posture is good.”, he said. “I have seen worse, that’s for sure. I believe you have problems with balance. Try to compensate.”

“Okay.”, she answered, accepting the arrow that he offered her.

She returned to the shooting position, and this time she took it easy. Knowing that Hanzo wasn’t judging her, at least out loud, tranquilized her. She rose the bow and aimed. She stood still for a second, and then, aimed a bit at her right. Two seconds still, and aimed higher.

The arrow punctured the mannequin’s neck.

Ester turned around to look at Hanzo, who had his eyes opened wide.

“I don’t know how I did it! I swear I was aiming for the body!”, she half laughed, nervous and excited.

“It has been… A good shot.”, he said upon recovering from the impression. “Again.”

He was the most restless of the two of them. The first attempt, absolutely disastrous, had made him believe that the girl was inexperienced. Worthless with weapons, at least with a bow. One less peril. But that second shoot had been hair-raising. Yes, alright, the preparation had been slow and clumsy, but the result was undeniable.

He was back as he was at the beginning: he didn’t have any idea of the capabilities of the new comer.

The third arrow bounced at the bottom wall.

Hanzo covered up a sigh of relief. Beginner’s luck. Yeah, sure it had been that…

A long while passed. Ester shoot, and Hanzo pointed out some error from time to time. They went together to retrieve the arrows, and when she got tired, he took back the bow and practised, letting her sit on the chair. He stopped analysing her posture to look at her image: the girl had her curls upswept behind her head. Two long curls fell in front of her ears, and small ringlets formed at her nape. It reminded Hanzo of the Roman statues, the draws of Greek woman at the agora, a XVIII century French noble… It was as if the essence of the European Mediterranean was concentrated in a single person: a constant that wouldn’t change as far as the sea didn’t.

“I like your tattoo.”, commented the girl while preparing another arrow. “Looks very worked.”

Hanzo raised his head a bit. “Thank you. The Dragon tattoo is an ancestral tradition of my clan.”

Ester freed a giggle. “Once I told my grandparents I wanted a tattoo and they did a brutal face of repulsion.”

The man hummed, amused. “May I ask the year of birth of your grandparents?”

“Hm…”, she thought, freeing an arrow. It punctured an arm. “Between 1930 and 1950, I think.”

She turned around upon not getting any response.

“I apologise.”, reacted Hanzo. “Those are… really far away dates. The way of thought was very different.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. I guess then nobody would come up with the idea that self-conscious robots would rebel against humanity. Actually, I don’t think they even thought about robots. Too busy with civil and worldwide wars, I guess.”, she didn’t like where the conversation was going, so she decided to return to another subject. “Is there a motive why the tattoo is a dragon?”

“It accompanies a legend of my clan.”

He looked away from the mannequins to meet Ester’s expectant eyes.

“Do you want me to tell it to you?”, he asked, already knowing the answer.

“Yes.”, she answered with an amused smile.

 

_“My family tells of an ancient legend about two great dragons brothers: the Dragon of the North Wind, and the Dragon of the South Wind. Together, they upheld balance and harmony in the heavens._

_But the two brothers argued over who could better rule their land. Their quarrel turned to rage and their violent struggle darkened the skies, until the Dragon of the South Wind struck down his brother, who fell to earth, shattering the land. The Dragon of the South Wind had triumphed, but as time passed and he realized his solitude, the sweetness of victory turned to ash.”_

“Ah.”, Ester interrupted. “That remembers me of a time I was playing _Age of Mythology_ with my brother. It’s a game of military strategy, I think. You could choose a god and get his favours and special units. So, with my brother, we had the deal that we would just attack each other when we both were at the highest level, and so we had our titans (the strongest and unique unit of the game), to make them fight. That day I had arrived at the highest level faster, because I practically didn’t spend any resources in anything. My brother, on the other hand, was more foresighted and always made soldiers and knights. Anyway, what does he does? Send soldiers to attack me! I got pissed off. I sent my titan to his town and destroyed everything, and the match still took a while to end, because I had to chase his citizens all over the map. Now I realise that, since the moment I attacked him, we had been in total silence. An angry silence. When I finally defeated him, he turned the computer off and left without saying a thing. Thinking about it, it was very uncomfortable… Oh, sorry. I have interrupted you. Keep going, please!”

Hanzo had been listening to the girl, frowning and pressing his lips together, clearly molested by the interruption. He didn’t really feel like continuing his tale, but Ester had lowered the bow and had turned to look at him with an expression of regret and worry that made him reconsider.  He released a great sigh before continuing with renovated serenity.

 

_“For years, the bereft dragon's grief threw the world into discord, and he knew only bitterness and sorrow. One day, a stranger called up to the dragon and asked, "O Dragon Lord, why are you so distraught?" The dragon told him, "Seeking power, I killed my brother; but without him, I am lost." The stranger replied, "You have inflicted wounds upon yourself... but now, you must heal. Walk the earth on two feet as I do; find value in humility. Then, you will find peace."_

_The dragon knelt upon the ground. For the first time he was able to clearly see the world around him, and he became human. The stranger revealed himself as his fallen brother; reunited, the two set out to rebuild what they had once destroyed.”_

 

“Oh”, did Ester. “So, it ends well, doesn’t it?”

Hanzo stood up to retrieve the arrows, and the girl followed him.

“I guess, yes.”, he answered without much conviction. He stretched a hand to pull out an arrow from a mannequin’s leg.

“Are the dragons an analogy of you and Genji?”

Hanzo froze. He straightened his back at lighting speed, but turned his head slowly. He found a calm and intelligent look that provoked him goose bumps. She had released the question with an innocent tone, but her face gave to understand that she understood the implications of what the story supposed.

The girl’s expression relaxed, stopping to demand an answer.

Hanzo was too busy holding back a violent response, and realised too late that he could just answered “no”, and kill the subject.

“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”, told him Ester, giving him back the arrows that she had picked up. “Thank you very much for letting me do archery with you. I have had a great time, and I want you to know that I am really sorry if I have offended you in any way: it wasn’t my intention. Really.”, that said, she did a few steps back and leaned forward to almost her waist high, and retired with her head a bit lowered, as if she were apologising even after finishing the most formal apologise she had done in her life.

Hanzo released the breath he was holding, allowing himself a small tremble, and opened his mouth to say something, but a metallic voice interrupted him.

“Attention, Agents.”, said Athena. “You are all called immediately to the Conference Room A2 for: Planning of the next Assault.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Bufar i fer ampolles" = "To blow and make bottles"  
> Something easy to do, natural.


	7. The Last Dinner

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy new year, everybody!  
> Thanks for dropping by. I really appreciate :)
> 
> Sorry if the culture spam gets unbearable. I just want a Catalan character in OW Xp

Ester sat with her mouth shut, simply watching, without taking her eyes off of the person talking or the projector’s image.

“Torbjörn has pinpointed one of his old weapon storages.”, said Jack when all of them arrived., nodding to the Swede engineer, giving the floor to him.

“Basically, there’s big stuff. Things that go boom and shouldn’t be left out there, so I need time for the retrieve. The storage is in Castillo, Mexico.”

“You have a team in mind?”, asked Jack.

“I have a vague idea, but I accept suggestions. I want variety to be ready for any situation. Reinhardt!”

“ _Ja_ , my friend!”, answered the behemoth with his usual enthusiasm. “I’ll gladly accompany you!”

“I can help with language.”, McCree raised his arm. Torbjörn and Jack nodded their approval.

“Can I come? Come on guys, let me come!”, pleaded Lúcio.

A nod and a light communal laugh gave him permission.

“I offer my services.”, said Hanzo with all his dignity.

“Very well. With that we have offense, defence, support and tank, we are five in total. Somebody else wants to join?”

“A change of air would be good.”, said Satya.

“Well. We are leaving tomorrow morning.”, spitted Torbjörn.

“So early?!”, exclaimed Lúcio, disillusioned.

“The sooner we start, the sooner we’ll be done!”, grumbled the engineer. “We will go over the details on the journey there!”

And it seemed that, with that, the meeting was over.

People started exiting the room, and finally the only ones left were Jack, who checked on his tablet and turned off devices, and Ester, who hadn’t moved from her chair.

“They will go armed, won’t they?”, she asked.

Jack turned to look at her.

“McCree has a gun. Hanzo, a bow. I have never seen Lúcio, Satya or Torbjörn with a weapon, but they have one, don’t they?”

He nodded.

“You think they will have to use them?”, she asked with worry.

“Yes.”, he answered, returning to his work.

“Is the world so bad now?”, she asked some time later.

“Thanks to us, it is better.”

Ester didn’t answer, but her silence reproached the narcissism of his last intervention. Jack left what he was doing and sighed lengthily, rubbing his eyes before leaning his hands against the table, pinning her with his gaze crossed by his scars.

“Look: of course it would be much better if we didn’t have to do any of this. Of course that the place you come from is much better: where there only humans and organizations like Talon don’t exist. But that’s not an option anymore, you know? The Omnic Crisis happened, and we have to live with the consequences, whether we like it or not. We can do anything about that. But all of us who are here have decided that we want, and can, do something about it. You have the right to think what you want, you have the right to opine that we shouldn’t do the things that we do. Yes, it’s dangerous. Yes, what we do, we do it armed. The world is like that now. But we don’t loose hope that someday, it won’t stop being it.”

The girl was left speechless, with her back straightened and blinking in an attempt to get rid of the impression. She looked away, and he moved his hands away. He turned, missing how Ester quickly dried a tear.

“You… All of you are admirable people. And… I am grateful that you let me stay here.”

“You are here because of us. It’s the least we can do.”

Ester shook her head. No: there wasn’t a least for her. She was useless, she wasn’t good enough for anything, not with Overwatch and not back at home: at the moment of choosing a career her grades weren’t high enough to get a scholarship, she hadn’t had a work in her life, the pain in her back tortured her a bit every day, and her parents…

She emerged from her thoughts upon processing the arms surrounding her. Without realising, she had started crying and Jack had hugged her.

“Easy there… I’m sure Winston will find a way to send you home.”

 _No,_ thought Ester: _That’s not… That’s not what I want…_

 

It was late in the evening when, still a bit shaky, Ester entered Winston’s lab for the first time. First thing she noticed was the multitude of empty peanut butter pots, spread all over the floor and on some tables. Heaped in a corner were the caps. With her habitual stealth, she crouched down to pick up a pot and inspect it. When the smell got to her, her lips curved in disgust. She raised her gaze and saw that Lena was there too, with her chronal accelerator on and plugged, and talked to Winston in low voice. In the thirty seconds she had been there, they still hadn’t noticed her presence, despite not being with their backs turned on her.

“Hello.”, she greeted shyly. “Can I come in?”

“Oh? Ah, Ester! Come, come!”, invited her the gorilla. Ester started her march, raising up her knees so she wouldn’t trip over the pots. “Sorry for the mess. What can we help you with?”

When she arrived where they were, Ester stopped and looked at Lena with empty eyes. The British swallowed saliva, maybe along a feeling of guilt or awkwardness, but suddenly Ester offered her a light smile, and that disconcerted her.

“Um… I had never been here.”, the girl answered to Winston. “Jack told me… that I shouldn’t be afraid of coming here and asking, um, if… if you have found of something about the time problem.”

“Oh. Well, that’s what we were talking about, right, Lena?”, he turned to write something in his computer. Equations and diagrams could be seen in the screens surrounding him, but Ester only could recall a couple of them. “There was a small fissure in the chronal accelerator, but it’s already fixed. The problem is that I still don’t know where the energy that allowed such a large chronal jump came from. I have checked the electric systems five times in a row, and there wasn’t any increment in voltage.”, the scientist slumped on his chair. “What I would like to test is if you two can still jump together.”, he added, turning to face the girls.

For a few seconds, nobody said a thing.

Ester changed her gaze from Winston to Lena, from Lena to Winston.

“How?”, she asked, a bit disturbed.

“With the chronal accelerator, I can move forward and backward in MY time. Or at least this is how it was, until we met and I dragged you with me…”

“I don’t know if it thrills me to do another time jump…”, answered Ester, clearly uncomfortable.

“Don’t worry, there’s no risk of getting lost! It would be just a few seconds, I promise.”, said Lena with sweet voice.

Ester stepped forward, more prepared to try it, but she ended up returning to her original spot.

“Today I tried out one of Satya’s teleporters. It wasn’t cool.”

“Ah…”, did Lena. “Well, I can’t deny it might make you dizzy if you are not used to it… You don’t have to do it if you don’t want, of course!”, she added gesticulating.

Ester took air and forced herself to go to the woman’s side.

“Let’s do it quick.”, she said, taking hold of her arm.

Winston unplugged the cable from the chronal accelerator before stepping back.

After making them wait for him to check the calculations for the third time, he opened a locker and offered a helmet and protective glasses to Ester.

“Just in case.”, he said with an attempt to a comforting smile.

The girl geared up, saving her doubts for herself, and looked at Lena, who seemed very confident and observed her with… tenderness?

“What?”, did Ester.

“Nothing. It just that… I’m glad you trust me, to a certain point.”

She decided to ignore the comment.

“Whenever you are ready, ladies.”, said Winston.

“Ready?”, asked Lena.

“No, but yes.”

Lena half dragged half walked her to the other side of the lab. Ester stared at her, without understanding of what were they doing. With a giggle and a blue streak, they disappeared.

They reappeared to the spot where Ester had grasped Lena’s arm.

“See? That’s it…”, started saying Lena, but then she noticed the girl’s open wide eyes.

She fell to the ground with a mute sound.

“Ester!”, she screamed, crouching at her side and taking off the helmet and the glasses. Winston left his screens and neared the girls.

Ester’s body was totally limp. Lena turned her over so she was lying on her back. Her eyes were opened and darted everywhere, but she didn’t seem to recognize anything around her.

“Ester! Ester, can you hear me? Winston, call Angela!”

Upon hearing the voice, Ester moaned, and her limbs flexed in a small convulsion.

“Hnn…”, she did, trying to turn back to facing the floor. Lena tried to stop her, but Winston retained her hands, giving the girl a chance to recover on her own.

Ester stood on her knees and stared at them, like if she couldn’t recognize them.

“Ester. Are you feeling well?”

She tilted her head a little, and after long seconds of silence, she swallowed.

“Y… Yes…”, she answered, and sat on the floor, bringing a hand to her forehead.

When she took it out, she turned to look around her.

“You sure? Suddenly you fell and you weren’t answering…”, said Lena.

“Well, disorientation for instant transport is usual, but it seems like you passed directly to faint. Has it been the same with Satya’s teleporter?”, asked Winston.

Ester was still slow when answering questions.

“No… No, it’s just… When we reappeared, it seemed like I was dreaming. Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”, she answered, standing up. “What time is it? I’m hungry.”

 

Despite Lena’s and Winston’s insistence on Ester visiting Angela for a quick check-up, Ester went directly to the kitchen, leaving them to do a couple more tests. As usual, she found Lúcio, who this time seemed pretty stressed out.

“Hello.”, she saluted. “What’s up?”

“Oh, hi!”, he answered with a vibration in his voice, giving away his distress. “I was… I was thinking what to do for dinner but everything that comes to my mind will take a lot of time to be ready and I have to pack up my things and make preparations because I’m leaving tomorrow morning and I thought of leaving you instructions on what to do for dinner and I don’t know if I’ll have time to…”

“ _Calla_.”, she interrupted him. “Stop stressing yourself out.”, she half smiled, looking around her.

Lúcio had spread a multitude of ingredients on the marble under the hanging cupboards. Her mouth tilted down upon seeing the scene. She was hungry, yes, but not enough to eat what seemed to be a four-layer lasagne. Like if it were calling her, Ester’s eyes fell upon the farmer’s bread.

“What if I make some light dinner? _De pica pica_.”

Lúcio frowned at the last part, so she decided to elaborate.

“We take a lot of things to the table and everyone picks up whatever they want. It’s fast, simple, and everybody is well served: cheeses, breads, cold meats, preserved foods…”

“Ah!”, he exclaimed, understanding the idea. “Um, I don’t know if we have much of those things…”

Ester walked with her fast and silent pace to the fridge and looked it up.

“I will take care of that.”, she said, turning on her heals to go to the Brazilian and put her hands to his shoulders to push him towards the door. “You go relax and pack up. I will improvise something.”

And having said that, she banned him from the kitchen. Reinhardt saw the scene and stood in the hallway, watching with Ester how Lúcio made way to his room.

“Hello!”, she greeted him. “Don’t you have to pack up too?”, she asked, pointing with her thumb in the direction Lúcio had left.

“I am ALWAYS ready!”

The girl laughed at the answer.

“Are you busy? Can you help me with dinner?”

“Of course!”

They entered the kitchen and Ester explained her idea. Between the two of them gathered a few Swiss cheeses, smoked meat… Once reached a point they decided to open all cupboards and take everything that could be eaten without cooking. They carved a long time between packages and envelopes with Japanese and Chinese letters, insecure.

“Um, maybe we could do some rice salad. This way we will have our Asiatic friends happy.”, suggested Reinhardt.

“Yes, okay. Good idea. Can you take care of it? I want to make some bread with tomato.”

The German showed a slight interest for the girl’s words, and she was more than glad to have an audience for the preparation. There was a moment of great tension when slicing the bread, but Ester managed to make eighteen slices, despite being of different thickness. Reinhardt watched how the girl rubbed the cut in half tomato against the bread’s center.

“And why do you do that?”, he asked, pointing to the slice she was working on. “I mean, wouldn’t it be better to just put tomato slices on the bread, or something like that?”

“That’s not the idea.”, answered Ester, rising her gaze. “The bread is soaked with tomato so it won’t get dry. So it will be nice and soft, and it doesn’t scratch. Not because you want to eat tomato! When we want to eat tomato, we make salads!”

“Ah. Well, it’s not a bad idea…”

To put it an and, she showered the bread in olive oil.

“Aren’t you putting too much…?”, he asked when it was clear that the bread was getting wet.

“Me? Not at all! My father always told me I put too little. He always poured more and more. But you are right: I’ll leave it like that and whoever wants more can pour it themselves.

They brought everything to the dinning table when people started arriving, and Ester rushed to explain the dynamics. She offered a slice of bread to anyone who could eat, and Reinhardt served the rice salad. The dinner turned out to a combination of small chatter and polite requests to pass over foods that were too far away to reach.

Lúcio seemed happy to see that Ester’s idea had worked and looked towards her to dedicate her a smile, but she was too busy noticing the absence of two persons.

“And Junkrat and Roadhog?”, she asked to the room.

“Ah, those two don’t stay long around here, love.”, Lena answered right next to her, taking a toast with foie.

“And where do they go?”, she insisted.

“Believe me, it’s better not to ask…”, sighed the British.

Ester twisted her lips, less than happy with the answer. She remembered the comment Ana had made about the Junkers and the pep talk Jack had given her. If they had a bad reputation, wouldn’t it be better to have them controlled? Didn’t they put at risk Overwatch’s image?

She had a lot of strident questions, but she didn’t want to turn another dinner to an interrogation. She didn’t want anybody to leave with a bad feeling.

Angela bit down her bread and tomato slice.

“Does this have olive oil?”, she asked, touching her arm to call Ester’s attention.

“Yes.”

“Could you recommend me a good brand? Or the best cultivation place? It would be nice if we switched butter for olive oil. The Mediterranean diet would be good for some of us.”

The older members tried really hard not to take offense.

“Um… Truth is, I don0t know anything about brands nor places. The only thing I know is that the best is the virgin olive oil.”, she answered shrugging. “I don’t know how it must be now, but when I went buying with my parents there where so many brands that seemed impossible to taste them all…” And, furthermore, we usually took the ones that where on offer. But she decided not to add that.

“Is this what you were eating this morning?”, asked Hanzo from the other side of the table, raising and inspecting his slice of bread.

“Yeah.”, she answered. Suddenly, everyone on the table was grabbing their bread slices.

“Ei, you don’t have to eat it if you don’t want it or you don’t like it, alright?”, she said, blushing. She suddenly felt uncomfortable, feeling as if she were forcing a place for her culture.

“Trying foreigner’s traditions never hurt anyone.”, Jesse played it down. “Do you have more stuff in your homeland?”.

And, as he guessed, the Catalan’s eyes lighted up while a nostalgic smile got drawn on her face.

“As in dishes? Yes, we have, but a lot of them are typical of winter. Mainly legume, pork meat, and bread, a lot of bread. We eat bread practically every day. Coast fish and seafood are usual too. And wild mushrooms! The wild mushrooms are tradition.”, she commented, stopping eating to lean back on her chair with a half-lost gaze. “When I was a little girl, in autumn, we went my parents, my brother and I to a camping on the mountains, and we went to search for wild mushrooms all together.”

“Aren’t wild mushrooms poisonous?”, asked Fareeha, stopping her fork full of rice dead on its track, half the way to her mouth.

“Some are, some aren’t. Because it is a tradition to search for them and are gastronomically very appreciated, everybody knows how to tell apart the most commons. In case of doubt: do not pick up.”

“We searched for mushrooms in Japan, too!”, jumped Genji.

“Yes,”, Ester smiled. “once I ate one of those brown mushrooms with a cross in the middle… I don’t remember the name…”

“ _Shiitake._ ”, the cyborg pointed out.

“That’s it.”, she smiled.

“And something that it is not food?”, intervened Zarya. “Battles? Dances? Like _Khorovad,_ or _Chechotka,_ or _Barynya_?”

“Um… I guess we have the _Sardana._ And the Stick Dances.”

“How do you dance those?”, asked Lena, looking at her through the corner of her eye.

“On your tip toes, in circle, with arms raised and holding hands. It’s hard to explain, watch a video if you want, but I don’t think you will like the music.”

“What are you saying?! Why not?!”, asked Lúcio, outraged, already typing on a projected screen that lighted up at the center of the table.

“The instruments are medieval. There are very strident sounds.”, she answered, a bit ashamed.

“Sister, never feel shame of your music or your culture!”

Despite those were encouragement words, Ester couldn’t help but feel scolded. She diverted her gaze and watched the short video. Her heart shrank a bit, not because of the dance, nor the music, but for the people and the architecture of the plaza and the houses around it. For the things she recognized. For her home.

“It’s different, but it’s good!”, commented Lúcio.

Ester kept watching with a twisted smile how the little persons jumped on her tip toes and moved along their circles.

“Do you know how to dance it?”, asked Hana when the recording ended.

“No.”, she answered. “I never felt the thrill to it. Also, while the _Sardanes_ were danced, the _Castellers_ were readying ourselves.”

“To do what?”, asked Mei, swallowing rice.

“Castles. Human towers. Look up a video, Lúcio.”, she asked. Instead of that, he passed her the keyboard. Ester doubted a bit before writing, distracted by the fact that YouTube was still a thing. _Quarts de nou_ , she wrote.

“There was a special tv program to retransmit those.”, she explained. She chose a random video, and a crowd appeared on screen, all dressing the same: a colourful shirt, a black or red girdle and adjusted white pants. Some of them whore kerchiefs on their heads, others, tied around their arms. Slowly, the crowd got together, and suddenly three persons rose above the others, supported by the rest. Other persons started climbing up their partners: putting their foot first at the back of a knee, the other on the girdle, and passed the first to the shoulder or head, depending on the height of the other person, who had to hold them by their legs while three more persons formed the next story, stretching their arms to hold onto the other’s shoulders to gain stability.

Around the table, a few comments about security came up. The _Castellers_ where at the center of a plaza, without security nets nor mattresses, where the only thing that could stop their fall was the crowd under them. Everybody had their eyes opened wide. The _Castell_ already had three stories.

“Ei.”, Angela said suddenly. “Ei, ei, ei, ei! Those are kids!”, she yelled, pointing at the video, her eyes almost popping out of their holes, as if Ester could do something about it.

“ _Ja_ ”, she answered.

“ _Ja? Ja?!_ ”

“Well, don’t hope for the adults to stand on top. The structure couldn’t take it.”

Satya leaned forward, really interested in the construction of the human castle.

Two figures, clearly the youngest, placed themselves on top of the third story. The tower was shaking and suffered convulsions.

“They will get hurt…”, murmured Mei, covering her eyes.

Even McCree was covering his mouth, unnerved.

And then, an even smaller figure, with it’s head protected by a black helmet, stared climbing up.

“Come on, they are almost done. The _anxaneta_ is already up. It’s the kid that goes on top.”

“Well, it has to be admitted that they know how to climb…”, commented Winston.

Ester laughed at that.

Finally, the kid arrived on top of the tower. In the room, everybody held their breaths. The kid stopped a second, raised their arm to the sky and started the descend while the crowd yelled in joy. The Castle got dismantled a lot faster than when it got build, and the camera spent some seconds focusing on the _Castellers_ , who hugged each other, clapped and brought their foreheads together.

Lena realised a little detail.

“They are barefoot.”, she said, turning to look at Ester.

The girl answered her with a guilty smile.

“And you did this?!”, exclaimed Lúcio.

She blushed in front of the boy’s enthusiasm.

“Yes. Yes, I was an _anxaneta_.”, she noticed Angela’s gaze, stinging in her cheek, and she turned to look at her. “But I fell and I hurt my back. I needed surgery, so I can’t hold enough weight to be in the lower stories of the Castles.”, she explained before drinking water.

“I am surprised there isn’t more accidents like those. It should be forbidden to make kids climb there!”, the doctor exclaimed, but hushed when noticing that Ester was staring at her as if she were crazy.

“There weren’t any accidents like these, because Castles usually fall in vertical. A person fails and the structure goes down.”, she explained, and clicked a video where the _Castellers_ fell: a lot of people rolling among the others in a storm of arms and legs that searched for support. “Little people gets hurt this way. But my Castle… Someone decided to not give in, even when the equilibrium was already lost.”, she continued.

She wrote: _Accident Castellers 030608._

In the video, a small figure got to the top and raised its arm at the same time that a man’s knee buckled two stories below. The structure started collapsing, but for some reason, the boy that was holding the kid’s leg didn’t let go and dragged her outwards, falling far from the crowd. The strident scream of the people in the plaza was heard before the recording ended abruptly.

Some of them covered their mouths, other closed their eyes or diverted their gazes.

Ester stared at it as if it were unreal.

“It was an accident.”, she said to break the dense silence that had settled in the room.

“You… You did not scream…”, Ana dared to observe.

“ _Ja._ ”, she answered, shrugging. It took her a few seconds to decide to give more explanations. “It’s just that… I didn’t think it was real. Everything was normal, and suddenly everything was spinning. I touched ground but I didn’t feel pain, so I thought I was dreaming. I fall a lot when dreaming.”, she pointed out. “I didn’t realise that what was happening was real until I saw my parents running towards me.”, she made a pause, diverting her gaze to a wall. The other stood silent, waiting in case there was something else to tell. “I guess that’s why I don’t scream. I never scream when falling.”, and she ended it with that: an anecdote the most of them; an explanation a bit deeper for those who knew her secret.

“In fact, now, in summer, is when _Castells_ are done in most towns. If you want to, we could go watch it: it’s a lot better on live.”, she suggested.

“No.”, Jack answered too fast, fact that put the girl on alert. “I don’t think we’ll have time.”, he rushed to add. “Maybe later on.”

Ester looked away from him, who had not even established visual contact, to walk her gaze around the room. Nobody looked at her in the eyes, except Hanzo, who observed, pondering, that clever look that he was seeing for second time today.


	8. Premonition and Planification

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have a looooong chapter with some action (finally)  
> The author has never played Overwatch.  
> The author didn't check for the time zones, or, in other words: the author checked the time zones and decided to give a damn.  
> Enjoy! :D

_The street wasn’t pavemented. The golden sand rose with every step that the crowd took on the street, everyone dressed in bright colours. Cheerful child screams could be heard. From side to side, buildings of a familiar architecture stood. Stone, bricks. The façades were of bright colours too. Right above her head, a huge white sun transmitted a feeling of warmness. The sky was… the sky was green. The few clouds that floated around crowded next to the sun and turned darker, and darker, and darker. A deafening thunder flooded the world and she was compelled to lower her gaze. The ground was red. Red, red blood, there was a hat on the ground, stained in blood, and a golden scarf, stained in blood, and it was red, everything was red, and she was getting nervous, her chest shrank and it hurt, it hurt a lot… A black spider slowly moved its long legs in the lower part of a building’s wall. Disgusting, so disgusting, she wanted to poke…_

Ester awoke suddenly, with malaise digging in her head, and she rushed to rest her feet on the floor and look at the clock. 6:55. The team was leaving in five minutes. She stood, ready to run through the door, without getting dressed or brushing her hair, but she realised a horrible fact: she was already forgetting dream’s details.

Nervous, under pressure, she looked around the room to rediscover her tablet. She took it and ran to the hangar.

She took the pen with the intention of writing what she remembered, but switching screens she saw the icon for the recording app. She activated it, nearing the tablet to her mouth with shaky breathing from the race and the realization that nearly anything remained from the dream, except the angst.

“Death hides among the green sky!”, she yelled to the device, unable to give more details. “Athena!”, she yelled to the air. “Athena, tell them to wait!”

“Transmitting message.”, answered the AI.

Ester hadn’t realised that the hangar was around the next corner. She would have sworn that there was much more distance between it and the rooms.

“What’s going on?”, grumbled Torbjörn, accompanied by Jack.

Behind him, Reinhardt finished loading equipment, and the rest of the team was already on the transport, looking outside with curiosity.

With heavy breathing, Ester played the recording:

“Dead hides among the green sky!”, sounded the robotized voice.

“I had a dream.”, she said when she had enough air to speak. “Very real, lots of angst, lots of dead… But I can’t remember the details anymore…”

Awkward pause. It was clear that the subject of the premonitory dreams was still in doubt.

“I only… wanted to warn you. Just in case.”, she sighed, getting back her normal breathing. “Be careful.”

“We will keep your words in mind!”, Reinhardt cheered her up while getting on the transport, offering her a grateful smile.

Ester and Jack watched how they left.

“Not to put pressure on you, but I think now would be a good moment to give me a communicator…”

 

That night, Ester couldn’t sleep. It was hot and damp, and the air stood completely still. She had already taken off her top and had kicked the sheets away. The base had felt so empty. It had been the first day she had been bored. After lunch she had gone to look for Ana to ask her if she knew something about the ones who had left. The woman had offered her a cup of tea and explained her a bit of the procedure: to stay in hotels or safe houses in duos or trios, do a bit of reconnaissance for some days… She didn’t get tired of reassuring her that all of them were professionals and they had done the same uncountable times over. Ester didn’t keep herself from talking her about her dream and the anxiety she had felt.

“You’ll see how everything is going to be alright.”, she had answered her with a comforting smile.

The girl gave up and left the bed. She pulled the sheet from under the mattress, took her pillow and exited the room with fast steps. She went to the garden, her predilect place, dropped the pillow on the grass and left herself fall with the sheet following behind her. She turned to face the sky, watching the stars and listening to the crushing sea waves. Her heart beat hard. If her dream was to happen, it would be tomorrow. Or maybe two weeks later. It was horrible: certain that it would happen, uncertain of when.

After fifteen minutes of psychologic auto-torture she reached the conclusion that she would never fall sleep that way, so she passed to her second most persistent thought:

If she wanted to go to Barcelona with nobody standing on her way, she would have to do it in hiding. She needed to know if she could take a train or bus. She would need to get somebody to take her to town and slip away, so she would have to trick somebody. Maybe she should take clothes that weren’t hers, in case she couldn’t get the timing right and needed to go unnoticed for a while. And now that she thought of it, the most important: she needed money. She couldn’t simply ask for them, they would ask her what she wanted them for… Oh. But maybe he wouldn’t.

 

Jack woke her up, crouched next to her and raising an eyebrow.

“Ungh… What…?”, mumbled the girl with raspy voice.

She lifted her head from the pillow and looked up at the sky: the sun had barely come out. She turned her head to stare at Jack again.

“What are you doing here?”

“Sleeping.”, she answered in a bad mood, letting herself fall on the pillow again. “And you?”, she asked, studying his sportive attire.

“Running.”, he made a small pause. “You are a bit in the middle.”

Ester flexed her legs and turned to a ball: “My fault.”, she grumbled, sinking her face to the pillow.

She thought she had heard a chuckle, but she couldn’t believe it was from Jack. She heard his footsteps getting farer, and suddenly the thoughts of the previous day invaded her.

Today was the day.

 

McCree was alert, and that made Hanzo nervous.

“Would you please calm down.”, he grumbled, looking at him with the corner of his eyes.

The two men walked down the streets of Castillo, blending with the crowd, taking notes on the buildings around the weapon storage where they thought Talon was hiding Torbjörn’s stolen weapons, and the tactical advantages and disadvantages that they could bring. They went unnoticed as tourists.

“She was right ‘bout the bomb thing.”, he pointed out, letting his gaze wander on the roofs as if he were looking at the sky.

“Coincidence.”, Hanzo huffed.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Jesse, the sky won’t turn green. Premonitory dreams do not exist.”

“Says the guy who shots dragons through his arm…”

“It’s different.”, he answered quickly after a second of intense realization.

“Hum, magic power that gets transmitted from generation to generation…?”, the gunslinger kept teasing, unable to dissimulate his smirk.

A warning look from Hanzo made him realize he was entering family issues. Jesse raised his hands in surrender, but he didn’t apologise. They continued with their scouting for few minutes before he brought up the subject again.

“There are green gases, right?”

“McCree!”, growled the Japanese, at the brink of his patience.

The cowboy brought one finger to his ear, disguising the gesture as if he were stretching.

“Come on, guys, what do ya think? I can’t be the only one thinking ‘bout it!”

“If it’s true, it’s really cool.”, answered Lúcio through the comm.

“I don’t believe anything that I don’t see.”, grumbled Torbjörn. “Now could you concentrate on the job?”

“I have my doubts too, but I believe Ester respects the truth too much to make this up.”, opined Reinhardt.

A dry sigh from Satya was heard. “The world follows an order, and in that way some events could be predicted, but if it were that day it would be using extremely well-calibrated instrumental, really complex calculous and a lot of private information that nobody would offer willingly. Not with a thing as abstract as dreams.”, she concluded.

“Aw, come on! Has never happened anything extraordinary to you? Something that made you think that there was a superior force, either helping or handicapping you?”

“Elaborate.”, sounded Satya’s voice.

“Alright, then: once I was running away from some bounty hunters, yeah? In the middle of Arizona’s dessert, ugly business. I managed to run away with a shot on the leg an’ found an abandoned bus station to hole up. The only problem is that I passed out. I was sure I’d die. The next thing I remember is a medic tending to me, telling me that someone had payed them to patch me up and bring me food and water. Syringe of morphine an’ bye. Didn’t have time to ask anything and I ever got to see ‘em again.”

“You know, Jesse? There’s a thing in the world that is called _good people_. When they see somebody who has problems, they help out.”, answered Lúcio as gently as he could.

The gunslinger shook his head in disapproval.

“That thing of mine… That was a miracle!”, the Brazilian smiled from his hotel’s room balcony, from where he had view of half the village. “I owe everything to the people who shared my music. That made me famous. I guess I also owe something to my investors, but… I don’t consider them as important as the fans.”

“I also had… luck that Vishkar found me and offered me a better life. But it was a coincidence. Any superior force had anything to do with it. Just a simple, happy coincidence.”

“I thought coincidences didn’t happen in Vishkar’s perfect order…”, Lúcio teased her.

Satya’s offended puff could be heard, but she didn’t reply.

“I had had lots of miracles in my life.”, jumped Reinhardt.

“Yes.”, Torbjörn cut him out. “It’s a miracle that you are still alive. Is somebody taking the mission seriously?”

Apologies flooded the comm. channel.

Hanzo had remained silent, doing as if he were interested in the building’s façades. McCree quickened his pace to catch up with him.

“Nothing ever happened to you? Apart from, you know, the dragons stuff.”

Hanzo huffed, eager to drop the subject once and for all. He deviated a bit to cross the plaza presided by a fountain, thinking.

“No.”, he answered. “No, nothing like that has ever happened to me.”

“Hm.”, hummed Jesse.

He cleared his throat, willing himself to concentrate on the job. They entered another street, and the cowboy stretched his neck to look up…

The sky was green.

 

“Ana.”, Ester called out, her head sticking out of the door frame, as if asking permission.

“Hello, sweetheart. Come in, come in. How can I help you?”, answered the woman while leaving her cup on the plate, looking away from her terminal.

“It’s about the Junkers.”, she said. Her voice sounded innocent. Too innocent. Even she was aware of. She swallowed, trying to correct the mistake. “Do you know where they are?”

“No.”, she answered straightaway. “Why do you ask?”

“I think it’s strange that they left without saying anything.”, she sincerely replied.

“Normally they do it this way. Unless they think they will need help.”

“Doesn’t it worry you to not know where they are?”

“They can take care of themselves.”, she answered her with a comforting smile. But that wasn’t what Ester was looking for.

“Do they have communicators, at least? Can they call for help?”

Ana freed a chuckle.

“Well, they have them, indeed. Another thing is if they answer. Don’t worry: they don’t spend much time outside when they leave on their own.”

“Do they like to travel?”

Another chuckle.

“Yes… You could say so…”

Ester was content with that. She thanked her and left the office with her eyebrows frowned. The money subject was still hard, but maybe she could gather other things in the meanwhile. She needed a backpack or a bag. Who could give her something like that without asking too many questions? Maybe she should work out a lie…

She knocked at Hana’s door, who greeted her popping a bubble gum.

“Hiya! Do you want a match?”

The offer was tempting, but Ester forced herself to remember the list of things that she needed.

“In fact, I was wondering if you had a backpack or something like that that you don’t use anymore… I’m starting to get tired of carrying my tablet around.”

“Ah. Come in, we’ll see what I have.”

Hana walked to her closet and pushed aside shirts and dresses, crouching to look at the closet’s bottom.

“I have this.”, she said, taking out a shoulder bag with her pink bunny logo. “It’s the only one I have, but I don’t use it, so you can keep it if you want.”

“Are you sure?”, Ester asked, studying the bag. It was big enough, yeah. A bit too flashy. Maybe she could improvise something to dissimulate it…?

“Nah, don’t worry! I will ask for another if I need it. I got it free.”, the Korean smiled.

The Catalan returned the gesture and left with the promise to return to play. At the corridor, she fixed her gaze to the security camera, a burst of nervousness threatening to shake her. Was Athena watching her? Would she suspect?

No, sure she wouldn’t. She hadn’t given any motive to do so.

That thought made her feel infinitely guilty.

Did she really want to do that? Did she really want to trick them? The answer was no.

But what about them? Would they let her go to Barcelona? She sincerely thought that the answer was no.

So she swallowed the guilt and, as dissimulated as she could, sneaked inside Lúcio’s room. The boy had given her his access code so she could download music while he was away. And there she was, digging through his closet. Gods, he loved shirts. All of them with the same shape, different colours. She passed the Brazilian’s national football team. At last, abandoned in a corer of the furniture: two buttoned shirts with short sleeves, the only trace of formality in the closet. The one with blue squares and black and white lines was pretty, but Ester opted for the one with brown tones, remembering that she should be discreet. She stuffed the shirt inside the shoulder bag, praying that if Lúcio came back sooner, he would cling for his other shirts.

In front of the closet, she made a pause. Her hair was very easy to recognise. She would need a hat. She dug a bit more through the closet, but the only couple that were there were too flashy, and wouldn’t hide her hair. She closed the closet and decided that, once she had the money, she would be able to buy a proper one in town.

She exited the room, going back to her stuff. She had a bag and clothing. She lacked money. She wasn’t planning on staying away for the night, the trip probably wouldn’t last a day. She would buy something to eat in Barcelona.

Ester opened her closed and hided the bag in a corner.

She lacked transport. She just needed to slip the subject in a conversation about technological advancements. And she knew a gorilla that would surely get too excited to explain it to her to notice the slight change in the subject. She just needed a bit of peanut butter.

 

The sky was green.

A reflection gave away the presence of a gun’s cannon.

McCree leaped forward, tackling Hanzo by his waist. The two of them fell to the ground as the gunshot noise echoed through the streets. The crowd screamed and dispersed, and the two agents rushed to stand and get to cover under a porch.

Hanzo and McCree looked at each other: their eyes opened wide, breathing agitated.

“The sky was green.”, mumbled the gunslinger, swallowing hard.

Hanzo peeked above. A green sheet rippled with the motion of the wind above the street. Without wasting any more time, he brought two fingers to his ear. “We are under attack!”, he shouted. “There’s a sniper and we are unarmed!”

“Coming!”, answered Lúcio.

“On my way!”, echoed Reinhardt’s roar.

A shot blew up one of the porch’s stones were the two men were hiding.

The sniper was on the move.

“We gotta run!”, urged Jesse.

“We’ll be dead in less than three steps!”

“We’ll be dead if we stay here as statues!”

Another shot broke a floor tile next to their feet.

“Maybe today they’re having a bad day.”, Jesse tried to laugh.

Hanzo answered him with his intense frowning, but he didn’t have a chance to articulate any words before the sound of a rocket flooded the street and Reinhardt appeared propelling towards them. He stopped to a halt skidding and activated his shield right in time to stop a bullet aimed to McCree’s stomach.

“Reinhardt is here, comrades!”, he yelled proudly.

But despite his eagerness to engage in combat, he found himself in no position to leave his defensive attitude.

The sniper kept shooting from different angles, and the shield was beginning to shatter.

“I can’t see them!”, exclaimed the German, looking roofs and balconies from side to side.

Hanzo and McCree stepped forward without abandoning the safety of the shield, trying to locate the attacker.

“There!”, yelled Hanzo, but instead of pointing at them, he activated his comm.: “Sniper at our ten!”

“Copy that!”, answered Lúcio.

Everybody could hear the music’s volume turning up, and before they could realise the musician appeared jumping from the street in front, aiming his sonic amplifier where Hanzo had pointed.

Lúcio saw the sniper and shot with the idea of throwing her to the ground, where Reinhardt could take care of her. Meanwhile, and taking advantage of the distraction, Symmetra arrived where the rest of the group were and deployed one of her teleporters.

“It leads to your hotel.”, she informed them. “Gear up!”

The two unarmed men left without missing a beat.

Symmetra installed a turret and set to follow Reinhardt, who had retracted his shield and chased Lúcio and the sniper down the street. She installed another turret when turning a corner to mark the way for the ones who had left.

Widowmaker ran in a bee-line to avoid the sonic explosions that his pursuer created, and turned to shot from time to time and try and get rid of him, but the boy moved at an extraordinary speed. The sniper used her hook to jump to the other side of the street, which gave her an occasion to see the two agents chasing her at ground level. Her lips tilted in disgust, but she knew they wouldn’t suppose a problem as long as they didn’t find a way to get to the roofs, and that possibility seemed inexistent for Reinhardt.

Wearing her usual stoic expression again, the French planted a mine next to an access door and continued her run through the tile roofs, jumping to another street.

The spider-shaped object freed its gas with the unmistakable sound of decompression. Lúcio couldn’t stop himself: eyes opened wide in panic, he covered his face with an arm, drowning the scream that was already escaping through his mouth.

The first leg to find footing failed badly and left him rolling and coughing through the roof. The boy curled over himself, trying to breath, but the coughing fit didn’t allow him to do so.

“Lúcio! Lúcio, what’s wrong?!”, shouted the knight’s voice from below, who was still chasing the sniper. “Lúcio?!”

He managed to activate his comm. so everybody could hear him cough.

“Shit.”, Symmetra spited, stopping to a halt and raising her gaze to the roofs. Reinhardt had already disappeared around another corner. There weren’t any stairs on sight. “Hanzo!”, she yelled through the comm. as he and McCree appeared next the last turret she had installed. “Lúcio is up there! I need you to help me up!”, continued the woman.

The archer nodded, hanging his weapon on his shoulder and changing course to climb up the wall with swift movements. The man froze a second at the scene that was Lúcio in that moment, but he composed himself, turned back, crouched at the edge of the roof and stretched his bow down so Satya could hold onto it, while McCree propelled her up with his hands. The Indian grabbed the bow successfully, only slipping a bit when she tried to pass her high heels over the edge.

At the other side of the roof, Lúcio had turned on his back, fighting to breath. His feet slipped on the floor, as if he were trying to kick the drowning sensation away, and massaged his neck as calmly as he could, trying to ease the air flow. Symmetra ignored him for a brief moment to pick up Lúcio’s sonic amplifier, and after a deep breath, she started examining the device.

Hanzo opened his mouth to call her attention, but stopped himself when he realised he knew the answer to his own question. Clenching his fists, knowing that he couldn’t do much to help, he limited to kneel beside Lúcio and hold his head up, hoping that would help.

“What is happening?”, asked Torbjörn’s voice, remarkably nervous.

It could be heard how all the comms. turned on, interested in the upcoming conversation.

Hanzo was the only one in condition to answer,

“Lúcio is down. Poison. Symmetra is trying to turn on the Crossfade system.”, he rose his head to look around. “I don’t have a visual on the sniper.”

“Me neither.”, growled Reinhardt. “I lost her!”

“Damn it!”, McCree swore in low voice.

With decision, Symmetra pressed a button near the amplifier’s trigger, and an energetic melody emanated from it. Swallowing hard, she directed the speaker towards Lúcio, praying silently. Hanzo pressed his lips together too, but they saw, relieved, that it was becoming easier for the Brazilian to breath.

“It’s okay.”, Hanzo soothed him. “You are going to be alright.”

Satya released all the air she was holding, waiting a couple of breaths before speaking through the comm.:

“We have to abort.”

Loud and clear. No replying, no excuses. It’s not as if somebody would have tried to argue: the principal beneficiary of the mission was Torbjörn, and even he had clear that it wasn’t worthy to put weapons in front of human lives. Furthermore, they had discovered them. They didn’t have the surprise factor anymore.

“Alright.”, answered the Swede with neutral voice. “Regroup and gather your stuff. We’re going back to Gibraltar.”

 

It was early morning when Athena yelled her at her ear that Jack wanted to see her immediately. Refusing to get dress or style her hair, demonstrating openly her bad mood, Ester exited her room in a bee-line until movement woke her up completely. Her eyelids were heavy. But the feeling in her chest was even heavier. She swallowed, worried. Bad news? She wanted to think they weren’t. She wanted to think that, given that case, they would have let her sleep and told her in the morning. Any excuse was good enough, so she clung to that thought.

The door to the meeting’s room opened swiftly. Everybody was inside, and all gazes fell on her with a mic of fear and respect. Ester entered, looking at all the faces, confused, before setting her eyes on Jack. He was tense. More than usually. The girl’s nervousness was obvious.

“What’s wrong?”, she finally asked with a whisper.

“The sky was green.”, the solider answered.

“ _Hòstia puta!_ ”, Ester covered her mouth with a hand, drowning her obscenity. Her eyes opened wide, her arms and legs started trembling. Zenyatta sent one of his harmony orbs to try and calm her down. “Are they okay?!”

The girl didn’t realise that Lena had stood up and had walked to her side, and now she tugged her arm to guide her to a chair. She didn’t resist. She was feeling awful all of a sudden.

“They are all alive, the only injured is Lúcio. They will arrive on base this midday.”

Ester released a shaky breath. She covered her mouth again at the same time a tear escaped her eyes: not even she knew if it was out of relief or stress.

“But… What happened?! Were they attacked?! They took them by surprise or…”

“No.”, Jack cut her. “They hadn’t had time to write the report, but for what Torbjörn has told me, there was a Talon’s sniper hiding in Castillo’s roofs. McCree saw her and managed to dodge the bullets, but when Lúcio went to chase her, Widowmaker left a poison mine.”

The code-name made the girl’s vision cloud, and suddenly everything exploded in her mind: the street, the sky, the sun, the blood. The spider.

“Why does ‘Widowmaker’ make me thing of a spider?”, she asked, sounding out.

The Overwatch’s agents exchanged looks. It was Lena who spoke.

“Widowmaker is Talon’s best sniper. She has a visor that, yeah, can recall of spider eyes, and uses a hook she uses to hang of or jump from building to building to get the best angle.”

Ester wanted to poke. She pressed her lips in shame, but decided that she had to tell them.

“There was a spider in my dream.”, she said, covering her eyes and biting her lips to not sob. “But I forgot. I forgot…”

A hand settled on her back for support, but she ignored it, hiccupping.

They waited a while in silence for the girl to calm down. When she stopped crying, only a titanic headache remained.

“Ester.”, Jack called her out. She raised a pale and irritated gaze. “Your dreams work.”

The sentence echoed across the room. Nobody said anything, nobody gestured or expressed discord or refuse.

“Your dreams work, and they can save lives”, he continued, slipping a small object across the table towards the Catalan. “Your communicator. I want you to every morning, early morning, midday, whenever you wake up; turn it on and explain everything you remember of your dreams. If you think you dreamed nothing, I want to know it too, and if necessary we will gather to debate what your dreams mean.”, he demanded seriously.

Ester huffed internally. One thing was to explain her dreams, the other encloses themselves in a room with twenty persons and talk about the possible metaphors that could (or not) be. But in the bright side: hey, she had a communicator!

Now she could… call Jaimie… and go to Barcelona…

She swallowed, trying to drown the guilt.

“But the comm. is not a personal phone, you hear?”, the veteran warned her. “Abstain from personal calls.”

Ester took it in her fingers. “How does it work?”

“You place it on your ear, if you want a private call you say the code-name of the person which you want to talk to. When done, push the button and the call ends. If all channels are open, as is habitual during missions, you have to push the button to speak.”, explained Winston.

“You have code-names?”, she asked with a mix of excitement and weirdness.

Lena passed her a list she had made with remarkable enthusiasm and they dismissed her with words of comfort and support. They thought she was still anxious. But no. In those moments, the only thing Ester wanted was to make a call. She closed her room’s door, and still fearful, she entered the bathroom and closed its door too, shrinking in the shower’s corner. She swallowed saliva and read the list.

Oh, wow. Some of those were cool. Not everybody had one. Well, it didn’t matter.

“Junkrat.”, she said, brushing her finger on the communicator nervously.

A constant tone sounded.

_Pick up, pick up…_

He didn’t answer. Ester insisted: two, three, four times. Seventeen.

“Oi! Who the hell are you and what do ya want?!”, the pitched voice scolded her.

“Jaimie?”, she asked cautiously. “It’s Ester. The curled hair girl in Gibraltar?”

“Oh. Ah. Sorry. What’s up, mate?”, he suddenly asked, changing tone and finishing with a light giggle that made the girl smile.

“I was wondering if you will come back soon. I need a favour.”

“Does it imply to blow something up?”

“No!”, she exclaimed.

Ester inhaled deeply before replying. “Money. In cash.”

A silence settled. The Catalan started sweating, seeing all of her plan going down.

“Ungh…”, it seemed that Jaimie was thinking about it. “’m sure we we’ll reach an agreement! We will be there tomorrow morning. I guess… this is a subject we shouldn’t talk about with the others?”, he sounded out with another giggle.

“Will you keep my secret?”, she whispered, a bit scared.

“Don’t worry, mate! Hog and I won’t say a thing! Right, Hog?”

Ester thought she heard a grunt, but she didn’t understand a thing.

“He says yeah!”, jumped out Jaimie.

“Alright. Is it okay to meet in my room?”

“Done!”, and without adding anything else, the Australian hung out.

The girl released all the air she had hold. Her legs trembled, and suddenly she didn’t feel like being able to stand.

She was doing it. Her short trip was almost ready. She had the bag, clothing. Winston hadn’t hesitated a bit to show her the map with the long-distance train lines. They had finally built the Mediterranean corridor. The train that went from the north of Catalonia to Gibraltar. _They just needed sixty years more_ , she thought a bit annoyed. And soon she would have the money. Why was she so nervous? She wasn’t doing anything evil-minded. She had just set up a one-day trip. They couldn’t forbid her to leave. In fact, McCree had encouraged to get out.

_McCree_ , she thought suddenly. Shit. Jack had said that the only injured was Lúcio. She tempted the idea of calling them, to ask them how they were, what had happened.

_“Abstain from personal calls”_ , Jack had said.

She took the comm. out of her ear and convinced herself that they were okay. Everything was okay.

Everything was going to be fine.


	9. Run off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ester's a bit of a liar. Don't get mad at her, she is just confused.

She had tried. She had tried really hard, but she couldn’t fall sleep.

Four in the morning, 100% awake. She paced in the room. She went outside. She came back. She lay down in a living room. Athena allowed her to turn on the tv and zap a bit. Boring. Boring, boring, boring.

Why was time so slow?

Her heart was still racing.

Anticipation. Always happened to her. Her body thought it was already acting on her mind’s plans.

“Ester.”, Angela’s voice startled her.

The doctor appeared with a cup of coffee on her hands and sat beside her.

“You can’t sleep?”, she asked with soft voice.

“I’m not sleepy.”

Angela nodded, but didn’t add anything else, drinking slowly from her cup.

The girl decided that a bit of verbal diarrhea would be good to kill the time.

“Are you worried about Lúcio? I am. I wonder if the poison is strong, I wonder if he is having a bad time, I wonder if he is dying. I wonder what kind of crazy bitch fills mines with poison. I wonder why the fuck I didn’t remember that there was a spider in my dream, I wonder if Lúcio would be alright if I had remembered.”

She stopped to dry the tears that had rolled down her cheeks.

Angela folded her legs on the sofa and touched hers with her knees.

“Lúcio will be alright.”, she whispered with her gaze low. “He is a medic too, you know? His sonic amplifier can heal with the right music. Satya must have found out how to use it.”, she made a small pause, as if she were swallowing an argument. She realised a tired laugh. “I have everything ready at the medbay. Five in the morning, they won’t be here until midday and there I was, still as a statue, waiting. Jack forced me to leave.”, she added, raising her coffee a bit.

Ester offered her a small smile, but didn’t answer.

“Are you stressed, Ester?”, the doctor suddenly asked.

She turned her head to look at her: “Not as much as you, that’s for sure.”, she answered.

The two of them looked at the other up and down, studying each other. Ester felt infinitely uncomfortable.

“What?”, she asked, trying to make her talk.

“Nothing. I was just thinking… Wow. You see the future.”, she answered with a soft smile.

“It’s not as cool as it looks. Most of the time it only serves to make me feel special. The rest serve to cause me anguish and anxiety. Plus, now I AM in the future.”

They didn’t say anything for a while. Angela kept drinking.

“Do you think…? Do you think I could run some more tests on you?”

Ester backed up a bit, her gaze filling with distrust.

“Nothing painful or invasive, of course! Just some CAT scans, see your neurologic responses…”

The other pressed her lips. She was curious too, of course. She wondered if there was a scientific explanation. She decided to express the conclusion she had reached long ago, meditating about the subject.

“And once done that, what?”

The doctor blinked, unsure.

“Excuse me?”

“Once you have made the tests, what?”, Ester repeated, raising an eyebrow.

“Well… We will know why do you have those visions. How do you receive or create them, how they manifest.”

“And then what?”

“What, what?”

“You’ll know those things. And? What would have changed?”

“Our way to understand it.”

“Maybe. But I would keep dreaming the same way. Running the tests, knowing more, won’t change anything for me. I would only be satisfying your thirst for curiosity. I am this way, and that’s it. I don’t need to know why.”

Another moment of silence.

“You know? Probably this line of thought was the one that kept humanity stuck in the Middle Ages for one thousand years.”

Ester conceded her a quarter of a smile and a small huff.

She was about to manifest her final ‘no’, when she noticed the dissimulated nervousness in the doctor’s eyes. She shut her mouth abruptly and tilted her head, going deep into the soul’s mirrors. When the nerves flourished in effect of the silence and the analyser look of Ester’s eyes, the girl lowered her gaze to Angela’s hands, which trembled slightly.

 _Oh_ , she discovered: _She wants a distraction…_

“Alright, alright, I’ll let you do it…”, she ceased.

A smile and a relieved sigh escaped the Swiss’s mouth.

“But we do it as fast as possible, okay? I want to try and sleep.”

“We will take the time that we need.”, Angela said softly, standing up. “But I’ll try to be brief.”, she smiled.

 

Ester returned to her room at seven in the morning. Truth be told, it had been good for her to spend time with Angela. She had fallen asleep during the CAT, fact which the doctor took advantage of to run some more tests while she slept, fact that made Ester angry because she had done things without asking permission first, but finally it stood in nothing. Angela had managed to distract herself for a few hours and Ester had been able to sleep, so everybody was happy. More or less.

Before returning to her room, the girl had stopped at the kitchen to grab some snacks. Basically cookies. Genji caught her while carrying the packs.

“Is all that for you?”, laughed the cyborg.

“Ehm… Yes. I have slept terribly and I plan on not getting up from bed in all morning, so I’m taking something to eat.”, she improvised with as much confidence as she could muster.

Genji had nodded and followed his way, without adding anything else. Thing she was grateful of, because she didn’t know how much speaking about her dreams could agitate her until she spoke about it with Angela.

And there she was: with her legs crossed on the bed, listening to music, avoiding Lúcio’s songs as well as she could, with her cookies offering for the Junkers on the table. She didn’t feel like drawing. She was too nervous. Genji. Holy shit, Genji. She hadn’t seen him in action, but she was sure he was one of the fastest. Genji and Lena. They would be her biggest problems, on her calculous. Zarya seemed physically dangerous too, but she hoped she wasn’t too fast. Zenyatta was a piece of bread. If he found her, sure she could convince him to let her go. Hopefully Winston wouldn’t get out of the base. Jack… with a bit of luck he wouldn’t come out either. Ana didn’t seem too fast. Fareeha, on the other hand… She had few information. Better not to underestimate her.

She shrieked when the door opened without warning, bringing her hands to her mouth.

“Oi, oi, don’t yell like that!”, grumbled Junkrat.

Ester let herself slump on the bed, regaining her lost breath.

“You scared me!”, she scolded him, sitting up again.

“We knocked but you didn’t answer.”, he replied, pointing the door with his thumb above his shoulder, where Roadhog stood.

“Ah… Sorry…”, she took out her headphones and set the tablet aside, stretching an arm towards the table. “I thought you might be hungry, so I brought some cookies for you.”

Junkrat seemed pleased by the detail and took a pack, but Roadhog stood where he was, in front of the door, with a huge sack trapped in one of his huge hands.

“Well.”, suddenly jumped Jaimie. “We’re here to talk business, right, mate?”

“Um… I guess, yeah.”

“So? How much do you need?”

Oh. She hadn’t thought about that. She needed enough to buy a round-trip ticket, a hat, food. A bit more in case of some eventuality. But she didn’t have any idea of the state of the stock market or the prices. Where they in post-war time? Had the prices raised?

People seemed to have a good living standard.

“How much re you willing to lend me?”, she asked, her face reflecting her ingenuity in the monetary subject.

“Hn.”, hummed Jaimie, thinking. He turned to look at Roadhog, who didn0t say anything, but when he turned again to look at Ester it seemed as if they had hold a conversation. “Not more than twenty thousand.”

“Euros?”, she asked just to be sure. The number seemed high. Was it high?

“You won’t get too far with dollars, will you?”, he answered with one of his giggles.

Ester smiled, pondering. She was afraid of not having enough, but she made a decision.

“I’ll do with half that.”

“Good, good!”, nodded the boy, limping towards Roadhog and his sack. The behemoth allowed him to open the bag, and the blonde took out some kind of ball that tossed to Ester. “Ten thousand euros for the girl of strident shrieks, coming out!”, he laughed.

Ester barely caught the object. Her jaw almost drops when she saw what it was.

A roll of five-hundred bills rested between her hands.

“B-But… I can’t pay with those bills, they’re too big!”, she said, without daring to close her fingers on the roll. She was hyper sure those were stolen. Last thing she needed was getting nick by the _Mossos d’Esquadra_!

“Hum.”, Jaimie hummed again, digging in the sack with a hand. He took out a blue roll of bills. “Better bills of twenty?”

Ester nodded vigorously, standing up to return the five-hundred bills.

Junkrat dropped them in the sack and kept extracting blue rolls with a hand and handing them to Ester with the other. The girl took a couple before going to the closet to pick up her bag and put them there.

“Aaaaaand I would say that with that you have ten thousand.”, he concluded, dropping the last roll.

Now the shoulder bag was quite heavy, but luckily it wasn’t full enough to show suspicious bulks. She didn’t care if it weren’t ten thousand euros. She trusted to have enough with that. She closed the bag’s zip and returned it to it’s corner in the closet. She froze in front of the furniture for a moment, realising that, upon breathing, her chest swelled more than usual.

“What? First time doing something illegal?”, asked Jaimie.

Ester burst into a nervous laugh, and he followed her.

“I’m not doing anything illegal.”, she answered when she calmed down. “I’m just doing it in hiding.”, she sighed. “Will you keep it a secret?”, she asked, turning to look at them.

“’Course! What do ya thing we are, tell-tales?”, Junkrat smiled, showing all of his teeth.

The girl released a relieved sigh.

“Thank you, Jaimie.”, she said, hugging him.

He froze where he was, without returning the gesture, utterly confused. Ester backed down when she noticed him tense.

“What’s the matter?”, she asked, half worried about having offended or disturbed him.

“Was that a hug?”, he asked with troubled expression.

“Yes.”, she answered. Maybe hugs were different in Australia? Maybe after all those years they were done in a different way? “Why?”

“Nothing.”, he answered quickly. Turning so his shoulder was facing Ester and crossing his arms on his chest. “You’re… You’re welcome. You don’t need to give them back.”, he rushed to add before pushing Roadhog outside and disappearing around a corner.

“Thank you!”, yelled Ester, popping her head out in the corridor.

She closed the door and leaned on it.

That was it. She had it! She only needed to get to town! She covered her smile with a hand. She was going to Barcelona! She was going home! Well, kind of. She could speak in Catalan! It had been weeks without saying a full sentence in her language. Excitement swallowed nervousness. It wasn’t even eight in the morning yet. She had time to do some stuff before the last step. She hoped it wouldn’t fail

She took the cookies and returned to the kitchen. She went back to her room, brushed her teeth, styled her hair, dressed up with elastic three-quarter pants, easy to take off, and a flashy pink tank top. She would get rid of it immediately. She only needed that, in case someone was looking for her, they would rely on her clothing. She turned, ready to leave, when she saw the communicator on her table.

Should she take it? Maybe it had some kind of tracking device… But they would find out where was she heading anyway. Besides, she was a bit afraid of being alone and uncommunicated. She would take it. Once she got to the train they wouldn’t be able to stop her, anyways.

Alright, then. That seemed that the last decision to make. She sighed, calming herself down, and headed to the labs.

She stopped in front of the door with penguins, polar bears and snowflakes stickers.

She knocked slightly, and Mei’s voice invited her in.

“Oh! Hello, Ester! You came!”, she greeted her. She seemed very pleased.

“Hello, Mei.”, Ester returned a smile. Poor thing. She hoped she was as innocent as she looked. She swallowed saliva along with a guiltiness feeling. “Are you busy?”

“No, right now I wasn’t doing anything too important. What for?”

“I was wondering if you could accompany me to town. I ran out of my favourite bread, and besides, I think it would do me well to walk around a place that isn’t the base…”

“Oh.”, she did, blinking behind her glasses. “Yes, of course! I need some air, too.”, she said standing up and smiled.

“Cool! See you in the hangar in ten minutes?”

“Yes! I’ll go change clothes.”, Mei answered, waving her hand.

Ester exited behind her and returned to her room. She took the shoulder bag with the clothes, the money and the communicator from the closet, adding a blue scarf that she had got from Ana. She put on trainers. A last sigh.

 _I can do this,_ she thought: _I can. I’m sorry, Mei. I’m sorry, Hana. I’m sorry, Lúcio. I’m sorry._

She hid her tablet in a drawer under the table, put on the bag and headed to the hangar.

She crossed paths with Lena.

“Hiya!”, she greeted her, looking at her curiously. “Where are you going?”

Ester stopped to talk to her.

“To town, with Mei. To buy more of the bread I like.”

“Oh, I see!”, she commented cheerfully. “Isn’t that Hana’s bag?”

“Yes. She gave it to me.”, Ester answered with a smile. “It comes in handy to carry my tablet around.”

Lena smiled back.

“Alright! Have fun you two! Try not to come back too late: there’s going to be a lot of movement by noon and it would be better if we could all be here to lend a hand if needed.”, she said, already leaving.

“Alright!”, answered the girl, leaving on her own way. “See you later!”

“Later!”

Well, for the moment it seemed like her lies were believable enough.

She saluted Zenyatta with a gesture and smiled as he meditated in a balcony, directing him all the good sensations that his image inspired her, trusting that it would camouflage all traces of nervousness that the monk could detect. Because she was pretty sure that the omnic could sense emotions.

She didn’t stumble upon anyone else, thing she was grateful for. Less explanations. Less lies. Mei was already beside the truck, wearing a white tank top, short jeans and a straw hat that made her look like the embodiment of cuteness. They got on the vehicle, and Ester left the bag between her feet.

“What a cute bag!”, commented Mei starting the engine.

“Thanks. It’s a present from Hana.”, smiled Ester.

 

The two girls went for a long stroll, first looking for bread, ultimately just walking around when they assumed they would only find it on market day. Ester constantly checked the time. She discreetly commented that she would like to see the train’s station.

Mei took the bait.

It was half past nine when the Chinese proposed to go back. Ester nodded with a smile and they turned to return to the truck. The Catalan’s rhythm was slower. She walked behind Mei, outside of her vision, but close enough so she would notice her presence. In an intersection, where the woman kept walking forward, Ester turned to the left.

She got away at a fast pace. She broke into a run when she turned another corner, once she was sure she wouldn’t call Mei’s attention. She entered the first bar she stumbled upon.

“ _¿El servicio?_ ”, she asked to the man at the bar.

“ _Segunda puerta al fondo.”_ , he answered pointing to the deeps of the local.

“ _Gracias._ ”

She entered the small lady’s restroom and closed the latch. She left the bag on the toilet. Her hands were shaking. She put the bill’s rolls aside to get to the clothes.

She almost throws up.

The clothes were Lúcio’s. Lúcio was having a bad time, and there she was: about to put on the clothes she had stolen from him. She considered backing down. Let it for later on, when everything was calmer.

 _No._ No, she couldn’t. Those were the perfect conditions. There wasn’t as much people in base, she had everything ready. _It’s just a trip_ , she remembered herself: _I’m not doing anything bad._

Except stealing clothes, ask for stolen money and lie and manipulate the people who was maintaining her.

 _The same people who dodge the subject of my homeland too fast,_ a part of her insisted.

That Mexican’s words echoed in the back of her mind: _“Siento li que pasó en Barcelona. ¡Sois muy fuertes!”_

She took off her pink shirt.

 _No siguis cagueta_ , she scolded herself with a voice that wasn’t hers, buttoning up the shirt. She took out five bills of twenty and tucked them in her pocket. She took out the blue scarf and hided the money under the pink shirt. She closed the bag and wrapped it with the scarf so Hana’s emblem was invisible. She hung it on her back and looked herself in the mirror.

The buttoned shirt, three quarter pants, short curly hair… From a distance she would seem a boy, but she didn’t want to take any risks. She needed a hat.

She exited the bar as fast as an arrow. Two doors away there was a souvenir shop with a peg full of straw hats. She restrained herself to not pick up a pamela hat. A fisher traditional hat covered less than the pamelas, but more than most of man’s hats. She was glad when the woman in charge announced her that it costed six euros. For what she remembered, it was the standard price to defraud tourists. She accepted her bill without problems.

Ester put on the hat and made way to the train station.

 

“What do you mean you lost her?!”, yelled Jack over the communicator.

“She is not here anymore!”, answered Mei, still spinning on herself, searching for Ester. “She was right behind me, but she isn’t anymore!”

“Where did you see her for the last time?”, asked the solider, trying to remain calm.

“Near the train station…”

“Then go look there.”

“I have already looked there and she isn’t there! I’m returning to the truck, maybe she got lost and decided to go back on her own…”

“Mei. Mei, don’t get nervous. Lena, Genji and Fareeha are coming and they will help you look for her. How was she dressed?”

“Pink. Pink shirt.”, she answered with trembling voice.

“Alright. Listen, if needed, you yell for help, you hear me? Ask around, ask the police.”, he made a small pause. Jack’s eyes snapped open when he remembered something. “Do you know if she had her comm.?”

“I-I don’t know. I didn’t ask her…”

“Keep searching. I’ll call you back.”

He hung up and turned to the screen in his office.

“Athena, locate Ester’s communicator.”

The AI unfolded a map of Gibraltar, where two lights shined above the projection. Three more lights approached from the outskirts, getting closer to one of the spots.

“Contact her.”

The call tone sounded until it hung up on its own.

Winston appeared through the door.

“Have you found her?”

“Yes, but she’s not answering.”, half gruntled Jack.

The gorilla looked at the screen. Genji, Fareeha and Lena had already regrouped with Mei. The spot that marked Ester’s position moved among the streets, getting away from the four crowded spots.

“Oh.”, did the gorilla. “I see she is going to the train station.”, he commented.

Jack turned around to look at him, demanding an explanation wordlessly.

“Ester came to ask me about transports… She wanted to know if trains floated too. It seems like she likes them since she was little.”

“Winston.”, Jack interrupted him with rough voice. “Was she asking you about technologic advancements? Or train lines?”

“Oh.”, he repeated. “She isn’t lost. She is running away.”, he whispered upon realising. He turned quickly to activate his comm. and speak to the agents in Gibraltar. “Ester isn’t lost, she wants to take a train!”

“Roger that.”, answered Lena.

 

She and Genji went ahead: Lena through the streets, Genji through the roofs. Fareeha and Mei followed at a slower pace. The cyborg jumped from building to building until he had the train station in front of him. There were groups of people with suitcases awaiting other transports, while a constant flux of people entering and exiting the building made him feel as if he were staring at an ant’s farm. He looked around.

“I’m at the station. I don’t have a visual.”, he informed via comm.

“According to the GPS, Ester is coming from the east.”, said Winston.

“Genji, maintain position.”, barked Jack. “Tracer.”

“On it!”

Lena ran to the street leaving a blue streak behind, searching with her gaze. Everybody turned their heads when she passed: kids pointed at her, adults tried to follow her with their eyes. If Ester was trying to go unnoticed, would she look at her when she passed by? Would she try not to react or would she go with the flow to not raise suspicion? She ran down the street without spotting her. She bit her lip slightly, worried.

“She isn’t here.”, she said.

“Yes she is.”, Jack tried not to growl. “You went past her!”

“It can’t be. She is wearing pink, right? I haven’t seen anything pink!”

 

Lena had just passed by her.

Ester had barely managed to hide her rigidness, but she had managed to keep walking without going slower nor faster. She hadn’t stopped. She hadn’t recognised her. Everything was going well. She released a shaky exhalation, concentrating on walking straight. She was almost done. She was almost there. She just had to enter the station and buy a ticket, or whatever she had to buy to get on a train at that time. She had ten minutes.

She saw Genji perched on top of a building.

 _Cago’m la puta!_ , she screamed interiorly, trying to stop the tremor that shook her shoulders. She darted her gaze to the station’s stairs. _Everything is fine. Everything is fine. It’s impossible for him to see me from up there… right?_

 

“Ester is in front of the station!”, yelled Jack.

Genji stood on alert, scanning the zone around the east street frantically.

“I don’t see her!”

“Mei, are you sure she was wearing pink?”

“Yes!”, exclaimed the Chinese, offended. She and Fareeha had arrived at the square in front of the station and dove into the crowd. “I am completely sure!”

“I don’t see anything pink!”, insisted Genji. “Could it be that she changed clothes, or sneaked her communicator on someone else?!”

“S-She had a bag…”, Mei remembered.

Fareeha ran towards the station.

Lena was still returning from the street she had swept. “I’m returning to the station.”

“Block the entrance, if necessary!”, ordered Jack, trying hard not to shout, or, at least, don’t direct his rage towards his team. “Stop the people, made them look at you in the face!”

“Jack.”, Winston interrupted. “Don’t you think we are making a mountain out of a molehill? We won’t find her. She is going to take a train, probably to Barcelona…”

“The chances are of 95,879%”, added Athena.

“…she is going home. Of course she is going home. We all would. We have tried, we have done it with good intentions, but she noticed we were hiding something and decided to go and find out for herself.”

Jack puffed, trying to calm himself down.

“And then, what?”, he rested his arms on the table. They trembled slightly. “She is a suicide, Winston. I don’t know about you, but I’m not willing to charge with her death in my conscience!”

“She has her communicator. We will find her once she is there. We will talk to her: she is a good girl and knows how to listen. I am certain that if we explain or motives, she will understand. But what do you intend to do, if they manage to catch her before she gets on the train? Drag her here, forbid her to go outside the base, go home?”

The solider rubbed a hand over his face, tired.

“She used us.”, he grunted.

“And what would have you done, in her situation?”

Another long sigh. Jack turned to turn on his comm. and order a retreat, but the device flared to life by itself.

“76!”, Fareeha’s voice sounded. Her heavy breathing could be heard. “We lost her! Ester got on the train!”

 

Ester saw Fareeha standing right beside the entrance. _Shit shit shit shit_ If she corrected her course now, it would be clear that she was trying to avoid her. The only option she had left was to blend with the crowd and pray for the Egyptian to not notice her.

She tried to think of something else to distract herself, get rid of the tension on her shoulders, but the woman’s vision made her shudder. Maybe it was the tattoo under her eye, that made the impression that Fareeha was able to see everything. She darted her gaze on as much faces as she could, but obviously, she couldn’t take them all in. A blue streak indicated that Tracer had stopped at the other side of the large entrance. It was alright. She was too far to recognize her. Genji was still on the roof.

Fareeha was the problem.

The moment had come. She had to go inside. It was the last step. Ester hold her breath and passed her by.

At that moment the woman was turning her head, so she only saw a blur. She didn’t bother on taking a second glance.

Ester exhaled and followed her way, now a bit faster. She didn’t want to be late. If she was late she would have really screwed up. Information point, she needed an information point. There would still be some of those, right?

She located the symbol and, arming herself with effrontery (or maybe desperation) she asked openly what she had to do to buy a ticket. She faced the weird look of the salesperson with as much seriousness as she could. She had to battle over it a little, affirming that yeah, she intended on buying a ticket and it wasn’t a joke. She even showed them the money. The omnic pointed some old machines against a wall.

“Select your destination and departure time and pay. Your ticket will tell you which platform you have to go to.”, they explained monotonously.

“Thank you!”, answered Ester, and took off at a quick pace.

Less than five minutes for the train to leave. She went to the machine and managed to stop the trembling of her hands, fearing at every selection being wrong about the minutest thing. She introduced the bills (40 euros, of 30 that costed the ticket) in an automatic box, and finally received the change and ticket.

Platform 5.

She rose her gaze, looking for signs. She started walking without noticing.

She passed in front of the entrance.

Fareeha saw what seemed to be a young tourist in a rush. He stared at his ticket attentively and searched for signs.

It wasn’t his clothing or his way of walking what stood out, but his ticket.

What was a youngster doing with a printed ticket when nowadays everybody downloaded the virtual ones on their personal devices?

Answer: the youngster didn’t have a personal device because they came from the past and didn’t have one.

“Ester!”, Fareeha called out with all the air in her lungs.

The girl couldn’t stop herself from turning her head when hearing her name.

_Shit!_

She broke into a run to the subway corridor that leaded to platform 5, Fareeha hot on her heels.

 _Please that Lena won’t be coming please please plase that Genji won’t be coming please please plase please let Fareeha be slow please please,_ Ester thought while running down the stairs.

There were quite people in the tunnel, moving in both directions. Ester managed to dodge people and suitcases, and succeeded in putting some distance between Fareeha and herself when a group of youngsters that she had just passed decided to stop in the middle of the way to wait for a friend who was tying his shoes.

Ester turned to the stairs, the emotion of victory beating in her chest, when she saw a blue streak in the corner of her eye.

_Oh gods no._

Lena just went over half the tunnel in a blink. She had already passed Fareeha.

And she was staring at her.

Ester run upstairs without daring to stop and check if she was going the right way.

A sign pointed: Platform 5, Barcelona Sants, departure in 0:58. And an arrow pointing right. She turned without hesitation. She almost crashes into the glass door.

“INSERT TICKET’S CODE”, requested a message projected in front of her eyes.

She looked at her right and recognised a code lector. She smashed her ticket onto it with trembling hands and the door opened with a slight “bip”.

“Ester!”, Lena shouted behind her.

Ester jumped forward.

Never before the sound of fists against glass had been so calming.

She turned at looked at Lena, her expression as if she had been running away from a killer. The British didn’t have a much different appearance: she stared at her like a kid who can’t believe their puppy just ran away from home.

They stared at each other for some seconds, but then Fareeha appeared around the corner, and Ester reacted. She turned around and entered the train. She used her ten remaining seconds to look for her seat. She took of her bag, placed it on her lap and hugged it absently, staring through the window. The train closed its doors and set off.

She was going to Barcelona.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "No siguis cagueta" --- Don't chicken out/Don't shit yourself
> 
> "Cago'm la puta!"--- Very ugly expression, usually comes out when deeply surprised or outraged
> 
> "Mossos d'Esquadra"--- Catalan national police. Literaly means: "Boys from the yard" with arcaic words
> 
> "¿El servicio?"---- The toilet? (Spanish)
> 
> "Segunda puerta al fondo"--- Second door at the bottom (Spanish)
> 
> "Gracias"--- Thank you (Spanish)


	10. My Homeland

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -This chapter contains cutural spam, implied suicide, about a half of Ester's backstory and maybe feelings. Also, depression is coming.  
> -I am bad at describing places and I struggle a lot with the use of at/in/on, so sorry if it hurts your eyes :p

Two hours. The journey from Gibraltar to Barcelona lasted two hours. Ester had got excited like a child at the transport’s incredible speed, which distracted her from her remorse. On the way, she recognized the river Ebre, and she knew she was in Catalonia. She was home. It was so close. She was eager to get there, stop the first person she would fine in the street and talk. Speak in Catalan, and chat and chat and chat and bring up as many stupid subjects as she could until she got rid of the sing-song of the English tongue that she had got used to. It had been weeks since her last sentence in her language.

The speakers announced their imminent arrival to Sants’s station.

Ester’s heart beat accelerated. During the journey, she had tried to mentally prepare for the things that might had changed. Buildings, social behaviour. But she knew, deep inside, she still had hope to see something that had stayed the same. A monument, maybe. The girl pressed her lips together. Judging by the behaviour of Overwatch’s people, she was half-ready for something bad, but its magnitude was still uncertain for her.

The train stopped.

She exited to the underground platforms and followed the people’s flow, tucking her bag against her back with a protective hand. She had forgotten the hat at the train’s seat on purpose. She didn’t like it a bit. She dared to raise her gaze from the person’s back in front of her.

The train zone was now better illuminated. There were clear blue lines that crossed the walls and some columns (what the heck was with people and those colours? Was it a trend or did they serve a purpose?). Everything seemed cleaner. The metal and stone rails had been changed for the elegant only rail that kept the train floating slightly.

Ester got on the escalator, cramped among suitcases and sweated backs. A bit further, the space became wider, and in few seconds she found herself deposited at the principal building of Sants’s station.

She crossed the security doors looking up: the station hadn’t changed much, at least for what she remembered. It had always looked modern to her, without unnecessary decorations and good illumination. There was more colour blue. The great flow of people and suitcases maintained. The racket was politely controlled.

Ester caught herself lowering her head, breathing agitated. She hadn’t realized the strength of her heartbeat. She didn’t know if it was fear or excitement. A bit anguished, she decided to go outside to have some air.

The traffic welcomed her: cars, motorbikes and buses floated elegantly along the avenue. All kind of people and some omnics walked in the sidewalks.

Opposite to the great plaza in front of the station, the buildings far away seemed to have been reformed, despite conserving their extremely ancient façades and their railings.

And there, standing right in the middle of the Catalan capital, Ester closed her eyes, visualizing a small part of Barcelona’s mental map that she had:

If she turned right and went straight forward, she would arrive to the Arenes: the old bullfight stadium turned shopping mall, and on the other side of the roundabout there was Plaça Espanya: with its huge twin towers, on their left the installations where saloons and events were celebrated; and at the end of the avenue there was Montjuïc’s Palace: art museum.

If she went over the other station’s exit, she would find herself beside the cinema where her grandmother used to take her when she was little, and the great avenue…

She was about to take a step, excited about visiting places she knew, know how they had changed, when a thought pierced her brain:

The _Sagrada Família_.

It must be done already. Yes, yes, sure it was fully built by now!

With an excited smile, she turned around and entered the station again. She bought a ten travels ticket and trotted along the building, looking for the right metro line: L5, colour blue.

As it was usual in summer time, the metro was oversaturated, but it kept being the best option. She couldn’t erase the smile from her face in the five stations that were until the great monument.

She went up the station’s stairs, excited like a little girl, but when she rose her head, her soul fell to her feet, along with two tears that escaped without permission.

She didn’t realize how much time she stood there, paralyzed, until somebody shoved her out of the way rudely. Not that she cared. She brought her hands to her face: rubbed her eyes, covered her mouth, pushed hair out of her forehead.

Where the fuck was the Sacred Family?!

And no: she wasn’t referring to the sad blue hologram that stood in it’s place, but the white polished stone cathedral, the building that her people had spent centuries constructing, the monument that had survived the civil war and the dictatorship and attracted tourists and fortune.

She looked for a bench to sit down and buried her head between her arms. She had to calm down. She had to stop crying. It was just a building. The price to get to the top was exorbitant. It was just a building, it didn’t have any kind of sentimental valour.

_Lie as big as a cathedral_ , said the Catalan proverb.

But, well, seeing the reaction she was having, no wonder they tried to hide this from her. But she still didn’t know what happened, only that the monument wasn’t there anymore. War, probably. It was the most logical explanation. But she needed to know more details. She needed to calm down, because nobody would be willing to give an explanation to someone that starts crying spontaneously.

She was on the process of taking deep breaths when a vibration inside her bag called her attention.

She took out the communicator, frowning, and put it on her ear.

“Yes?”, she answered.

“Ester!”, Ana’s voice called her. “Darling, where are you?”

She made a pause to suck in mucus.

“In Barcelona.”, she replied with raspy voice.

“Oh, little one… I am so, so sorry…”

Ester didn’t answer. The sadness was turning into rage, and she didn’t want to yell to Ana.

“We are coming.”, said the older woman, and the girl suddenly tensed. “We’ll come to get you, alright? Sit tight and wait for us to…”

Ester hung out and threw the comm. in the bag.

She stood, rage boiling in her veins, staring defiant at the hologram.

_Well,_ she said to herself: _At least nobody else has to see the back of it. The back was ugly as fuck._

 

If Catalans were good at something, that was putting informative and touristic panels everywhere. Whatever had happened, the information was surely available to anybody who walked in front of it. Being the _Sagrada Família_ , maybe they had even opened a museum.

Effectively, in front of the “monument” a digital plate explained the why at the cathedral’s state: blah blah blah, Omnic Crisis, blah blah, brutal bombing, blah, refuges, blah blah, collaboration among neighbourhoods, blah blah blah blah blah, economic crisis, blah blah blah, hologram to replace the cathedral because the people didn’t want it rebuild with… minairons?

She looked away to blink and read it again. Minairons? The small goblins from the Pyrenees’s legend? They had to be referring to another thing, that was obvious.

A new material of construction, maybe?

Her head hurt. She felt an annoying pressure behind her eyes. She moved away from the plate and rubbed them vigorously before massaging her temples.

The plate mentioned the anti-aerial refuges, so they had been used again. Modernized, probably. There there would be someone watching over the installations, so she could ask for details on the attack to the city.

She took a bus that brought her nearer _Gràcia_ and asked the neighbours for directions to get to the plaza. She found a bit of comfort in talking in Catalan, despite the tremble in her voice after five minutes.

She paid for the entrance to the refuge with a larger group of tourists and followed the tour guide in the gloomiest of the silences.

The walls weren’t made of bricks anymore, they were coated in metal sheets with those blue lines that were starting to irritate her because they were everywhere. The guide showed that some sheets could be retracted to show frigorific drawers where water and food were stored.

When the tour ended and the tourists took they leave, Ester stayed behind the guide.

“Excuse me.”, she said with the soft voice she used to talk to strangers. “Could I ask you some questions?”

“Of course!”, smiled the young woman from behind her glasses, turning around. “Go ahead.”

Ester swallowed saliva.

“I just come from visiting the Sagrada Família. What…?”, she didn’t dare to end the sentence.

“Bomb.”, answered the guide with a sad nod. “Aerial. Nothing could be done about it. It was a pity: all the hard work lost. The materials, the art. A great loss for the city.”

The girl pressed her lips before carrying on.

“And I have read that people didn’t want it rebuild with… minairons?”, she asked with a strange face.

The guide stared at her.

“Are you Catalan?”, she asked, and Ester understood that everybody at that period must knew what kind od minairons they referred to.

“On my mother’s side.”, she rushed to answer. “It’s my first time here.”

“Ah! Well, your accent is very good!”, smiled the guide.

“Thanks.”, she whispered, looking at her in a way that insisted in the question already made.

“Ah, yes, sorry. The minairons. Yes. They are nanorobots created by the great inventor Jordi Viladrau Montserrat, named that way because they are practically identical to the goblins from the legend. Except the part where they kill you if you don’t give them orders.”, laughed the guide.

“Do they do everything?”, asked Ester, really impressed.

“They do! When the city was in reconstruction, the minairons formed traffic lights, bridges, entire trains!”, she answered, really excited.

“Not anymore?”

“No.”, she suddenly shook her head. “When the economic situation improved, Viladrau proposed to make new infrastructures instead of depending on the minairons. At first people didn’t really like the idea because it meant paying more taxes, but then they realised the poor man was renouncing to his monopoly over the city.”

“Is he still alive?”, Ester felt marvelled by that man.

Maybe it was because she didn’t really know him, but she had already pictured him as an incarnated saint.

“No.”, the guide shook her head again. “He died some time after the war, during a military operation to eliminate resisting cells. Well, that’s the official version. Around here everybody thinks that his associates killed him to keep the minairons. Now his alive family runs the business from Andorra: they rent them to cities in rebuilding and stuff like that.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”, nodded the guide. “Actually, Viladrau has a statue here, in Barcelona. It’s near the Parlament, but I couldn’t tell you exactly were. His associates had them too, but we obliterated those.”, she added with pride in her eyes and a naughty smile.

“It’s okay.”, Ester answered, thinking about other questions. Her heart beat and weighed like a stone, creating an uncomfortable weight that made her think it would reach a point where she wouldn’t be able to move. She was aware it was emotional, a product of the nervousness, a heads-up from her body telling her that that situation was violent to her and she should go back to a safe place. “It looks like… It looks like the city is doing fine…”

“Yes.”, she nodded with yet another smile. “Another fact on the lists of things that we have survived.”, she said cheerfully.

Ester released a tired smile. “Yeah… Well… Thanks for answering my questions.”

“You are most welcome! I’m paid for it! Tell me: is Barcelona of your liking? How much time will you be here?”

“Today is my first day.”, it was the only thing she answered.

A new group of tourists was starting to crowd in front of the refuge entrance.

“You will need a few days to see everything, but you’ll see how it’s worth it. May everything go well!”

“Likewise.”, smiled Ester. “ _Adéu-siau!_ ”, she waved goodbye.

The guide waved back with her head tilted. She hadn’t heard that expression since her grand grandparents died…

 

Ester walked just to get away from there. As soon she had the feeling that her heart was about to come out of her mouth as if it were about to turn to stone and fall to her feet.

She realised, too late, that she was breathing through her mouth and her eyes stung. She sat down on a bench to hide from the people and allowed herself to tremble, clenching her tooth, supressing screams and hiding her pain behind her hands.

She felt exposed, vulnerable. There wasn’t anything for her there: nothing, nothing, nothing…

What had she thought? That she would find a utopia? That the future would be better? How stupid! She furiously dried her tears and picked up her bag violently, heading back to the metro. People stared at her upon passing, but nobody dared stopping her.

At the metro’s carriage, her stomach growled. Of course, she hadn0t had breakfast. She got off in Sants, where the communicator vibrated again. She looked at it with rage, like if it was the responsible for all disgraces of the world. She didn’t answer.

She searched for the renting lockers with her gaze. They worked on coins or digital target. Ester went to a cafeteria and bought a ham and cheese sandwich and used the change to take a locker. She threw the device inside it and locked it, throwing the key inside her bag.

They were crazy if they thought that they would reunite, apologise and all would be returning happy to base. Fuck it all. She wanted to be alone: she was an adult, not a dog with a chip!

She dried her new tears with her arm and bite her sandwich, trying to distract herself from her thoughts. She already knew where they were leading her. She already knew the conclusion, because she had reached it long ago.

Damn it, she had already carried on with it!

More tears were dried and, still eating, she turned around on her heels. She didn’t even look at the signs. She introduced her ticket, went to the platforms and took the train.

 

Lunch time had passed some time ago when the train from Gibraltar arrived to Barcelona and Ana, Fareeha, Zarya and Hanzo got off.

The sniper leaded the group with her gaze fixed in her personal device, that showed the location of Ester’s comm. They all whore street clothes, but stood out anyway.

“It’s here!”, she exclaimed with a glee that revealed the tension that she had been dragging.

All of them seemed relieved by the idea of finding the run out girl soon, but nobody wanted to assume it was done.

Fact they were grateful for when they found themselves in front of the lockers.

“Shit.”, mumbled Zarya, breaking the stunned silence that had surrounded them.

Fareeha brought a fist no her forehead, winkling her lips in an expression of irritation and headache: “She could be anywhere…”, she growled.

“Okay. Okay, let’s not get nervous.”, Lena tried to calm down. “Maybe she is still nearby. Maybe she just went back to one of the places she has already been, right?”

The truth is that the English, along with Ana, was the one that was more in the edge of all of them. She was fully conscious of what meant that Ester left everything behind. “We have to find her. First we will look around the station, we will look in parks: she likes peaceful places… Then we’ll go to places where she has already been… Somebody should stay here, in case she comes back… And then… then…”, she interrupted herself when she realised she didn’t know more places to look for Ester. She had never asked her where did she come from: where did she live. And she was regretting it deeply.

“I’ll go for a stroll around the station, I’ll ask if someone has seen her.”, said Zarya before leaving.

“I will stay around here for a while.”, said Ana.

“I’m going to take a look outside.”, nodded her daughter.

Lena nodded nervously, silently grateful at the initiative of her teammates.

She stared at Hanzo, who was concentrated in her personal device.

“Oi. What are you doing?”, she asked in a more concerned than angry tone.

“Ester told me about a train that she used to take when she was little, but I don’t remember the line, only that it travels by the sea. I am looking it up on the internet.”, he answered without raising his gaze.

“Do you think she took it? Do you think it takes her where she lived?”

“It could be. Or it could not. Anyways, she didn’t tell me about any station in particular. The probabilities that we found her now that she has separated of her communicator are minute. We shall trust that she will come back here and…”

“We can’t wait.”, Lena cut him out. “Find the train and take it. I’ll search around the city.

 

Hanzo had to ask for directions to make sure he was taking the right train, because three different lines converged in the same rail at that point. Line R1, towards _Maçanet-Massanes_. He took a seat in a group of four, tensed. He didn’t have any idea where was he going. Where should he stop searching. Ester had mentioned the sea, but not the length of the journey, nor any town. He tried to remember the draw of the station that the girl had made: the platforms, the metal bars separating the station from the promenade… He didn’t have much faith in it: in 60 years hundreds of reforms could have been made.

The train stopped in a few more stations of the city before speeding up and set off to the north. In a few minutes, it was already moving along the coast. The archer busied himself with searching for Ester among the people at the platforms, on both sides. With the train still on the move, he searched with his gaze through the window, and when it stopped he stood to sweep the opposite side. It was a suspicious behaviour, and people was staring to give him dirty looks. More than once someone managed to occupy his seat while he stood. Irritated, Hanzo bite his tongue and went to get a better spot.

The travel went on longer and longer. The sun started descending in the sky. The man started considering get off the train and turn around, go back to Barcelona. He was certain Ester would come back to Gibraltar. “ _One more stop”_ , he told himself. Until he saw her: on the other platform, sitting in a red metal bench; hugging her knees, as still as a statue, with her eyes lost in the rail that the floating train followed. Hanzo jumped out of the seat, raising protests from other passengers, and run out to the stairs to the access tunnel, eying the girl through the windows. He sprinted through the tunnel, prying for the girl to not disappear while he couldn’t see her.

“Ester!”, he called her.

She didn’t move a bit until he was next to her. She raised a sad and empty look, and took way her bag so he could sit down.

He did so slowly, disturbed by that look. They stayed in silence for a while, but Ester didn’t seem willing to strike a conversation. Her eyes were lost on the rail again.

“We were worried.”, he tried softly.

“Worried, or angry?”, she answered with a dry and shaky voice, as if she hadn’t swallowed saliva in hours.

Hanzo leaned forwards, leaning his elbows on his knees, trying to study the girl’s expression.

“They say you have planned a quite spectacular escape.”

She released a snort and half a smile.

“I was sure Genji would catch me.”, she turned her head to look at him, swallowing uncomfortably. “Are you okay? You just came from Mexico… And… you followed me here.”

“I am alive. Thanks to you.”

Ester rose an eyebrow.

“McCree didn’t stop looking for your green sky. He impeded my head to get blown up.”

Ester took a hand to her mouth, her eyes opened wide. She looked away and pressed her lips with both hands.

Hanzo placed a hand on her back.

“Easy. We are all well.”

“And Lúcio?”

“When I left, Angela was taking him away. But he didn’t have any crisis while coming here.”

Ester nodded and leaned against the bench, trying to calm herself down.

“I’m glad that you are all okay.”, she sighed.

They spent some time in silence, listening to the sound of the waves and seeing the trains pass.

“What are you doing here?”, he finally asked.

It seemed to him like Ester had shrink. She didn’t answer immediately, but he noticed her attempts to do so. Her gaze was on the rail again.

“This is where my brother committed suicide.”

The words fell on Hanzo’s consciousness like stone slabs. His eyes opened wide, air escaped his lungs. The only thing he was able to do was to watch the girl cry in silence, how she bit her lip, trying to stop the trembling.

“I am… deeply sorry.”

She shook her head. She didn’t believe words. Words were useless.

So Hanzo hugged her. He made her lean on him, accept the comfort he was offering her. And while the girl cried, he pondered.

That thing that Ester had said that was bothering her when he found her on the base’s roof, drawing the train.

The conversation while archering. The interrumption that he had thought rude, when it was an attempt of the girl to share a bit of her pain, of the emptiness that the absence of her brother had left. An absence that he himself knew very well.

He hugged her harder. Another train passed.

“Do you want to talk about it, or would you rather to stay in silence?”, Hanzo asked softly.

“I couldn’t tell you with words…”, she managed to say between hiccups: “I would cry too much… You wouldn’t understand a thing…”

“Would you write it to me?”

She nodded.

“I have my tablet home… At the base…”, she explained.

“Understood.”, he said, petting her hair carefully. “We’ll go back when you are ready.”

 

Two trains later, Ester stood, saying that they would take the next train. The sun was setting behind the small mountain chain opposite the sea.

“You know?”, she suddenly said. Hanzo turned around to look at her. “If we had been born 50 years later, my brother couldn’t have thrown himself to the train’s rail… Because the train wouldn’t have crushed him…”

He didn’t answer. There was no answer to that. Instead, he placed his arm on her shoulders.

“Is it okay if I tell the others that we are coming back?”

“Yes.”, she nodded in a whisper.

They got on the train and sat at the sea side.

“Could you…?”, started Ester. “Could you tell them not to talk to me when we meet…? I don’t feel like being scolded, or smiled at or… trying to be said ‘hello’…”

Hanzo nodded firmly.

“Of course.”

“Thanks.”, she whispered, turning her gaze to the sea.

The archer turned on his comm. and spoke in a low and calmed voice. He interrupted the questions avalanche to assure them that they were alright and heading back to Barcelona, and that, because of motives that he would explain later, speaking to Ester had to be avoided unless she initiated the conversation.

When they arrived in Sants, everybody stared at her, but nobody said anything. They had guiltiness, worry and confusion written in their eyes, and looked at Hanzo, waiting for answers, who just indicated with signs that he was leaving the subject for later.

Ester retrieved the communicator from the rented locker and put it on the pocket on her pants. She started to walk towards the long-distance train’s zone, ahead of the group, but stopped in front of a souvenirs shop. Without sudden movements, she entered with a weak smile on her face. From the outside, the agents watched how she bought two metal boxes. They listened with curiosity how the girl maintained a brief conversation in her mother tongue.

When she exited the store her smile got erased and the little light in her eyes vanished. She lowered her gaze to the floor, walking beside Hanzo, the only one who she dedicated looks for more than half a second.

They got on the train to Gibraltar immersed in silence.

Ester looked out the window, hugging her shoulder bag and the shopping bag.

On Gibraltar, a van drove by Mei picked them up. Ester stood next to Hanzo, letting the other women get on first. With his position, the man gave away that would only get on once she had.

Ester’s and Mei’s eyes met. The Chinese eyes showed her disappointment, the betrayal she felt. The girl searched on her plastic bag and took off one of the metal boxes. In handwriting and relief, there was written: _Neules_.

“Take it.”, she said, offering her the box. “I am sorry I used you.”

Mei accepted the present, remarkably surprised, but when she rose her eyes from the box Ester had already sat down at the bottom of the vehicle, looking through the window, immersed again in her silence.

When they arrived at the base, late at night, Angela asked all the questions that everybody thought, only to get an empty gaze, a bit annoyed, from the girl, who threw her bag to her chest and left slowly towards her room.

“Ester.”, Hanzo called her. “Is it okay if I explain them what you have told me?”

Ester stopped a moment to turn around and look at him with a defeated expression.

“Do what you want.”, she sighed

And she disappeared down the stairs.

 

 

 

“You exposed yourself.”, growled the broken voice.

“No.”, Widowmaker denied firmly. “I don’t give away my position. They knew I was there.”

“And how the hell do you think they knew?!”, roared the man, smashing a fist against the metal table.

“Not because of a mistake of mine. They couldn’t know I was there.”, she insisted without a drop of emotion. “Why aren’t you pleased? We still have the weapons. They are in a new storage.”

“I am not ‘pleased’ that my best sniper isn’t the best anymore! “What use are you to me if our enemies know where you are?!”

“ _Dios, Gabe,_ calm down…”, exhaled a carefree feminine voice.

“Don’t even get me started with you, Sombra!”, Reaper roared again. “You didn’t even show up!”

“Neither did you.”, smiled the Mexican naughtily. She raided a hand to stop the rage forming behind the mask. “But: did you know that Overwatch had a new agent? So curious that they appear and suddenly they know from where our lovely Amélie will shoot… right?”, she said, making a picture of Ester holding a bottle of olive oil appear above her hand.

“Are you insinuating that they have a prophet?”, he hissed, incredulous.

“Hey, they have two guys that invoke dragons.”, reasoned Sombra, raising her hands in an expression of indifferent mockery.

“What do you have on her?”, he growled, this time with interest.

“Nothing.”

A silence settled between them.

“What do you mean: _nothing_?”, now Reaper seemed slightly confused. In fact, he ws pretty sure she was lying to him.

“Nothing.”, repeated Sombra. “I haven’t found a thing. Not even an archive in the last twenty years. Either she uses an amazing anti-age cream, or that girl doesn’t exist.”, she smiled. “Fact that would make sense, if…”

“…if she had been hidden away because of her… ‘gift’.”

The three of them spent a moment in silence, staring at Ester’s image.

“Well, Gabe, you know how curiosity strikes me when I can’t find out someone’s secret, so… let’s say it wouldn’t bother me to help you pick her up, as long as I get to spend some time with her…”

The answer took a while.

“I’ll think about it.”


	11. Hollow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Suicide thoughts and chronical pain.
> 
> Sorry it took so long.

Ester lied down on the bed by pure routine, but she wouldn’t fall asleep despite the weariness. She knew that because she was hollow, and hollow things do not sleep. Everything with which she had filled herself with, good or bad, had fallen suddenly, and now she was back at square one: a hollow doll, incapable of thinking about something that wasn’t the present. And the present was nothingness. She knew what was that she was lacking, but it wouldn’t do her any good. Because as much as she thought about it again and again, repeat it out loud, her mind refused to process it.

Alone in the room, the girl took air with her mouth.

“My brother is dead.”, her voice echoed.

But as always, nothing changed.

It took her a bunch of seconds to realise she was crying.

She cried because she was hollow. She cried because being alive hurt. She cried because now Hanzo would explain to everybody her secret, and leave her exposed, and when she went back to the hallways everybody would look at her with pity and would talk to her with soft voice and she didn’t want didn’t want them to look at her in that way she had had enough…

She remembered then that she had told the archer she would write about the subject. Drying her tears with her arm, she stood from the bed and sat on the chair in front of the table and retrieved her tablet. She opened the writing app and stared at the blank page that the device offered her. She managed to fill her head with words, but soon realised that nothing that she had in mind would make any sense when wrote down. She didn’t think herself capable of write something like that in a coherent way. She wanted to try to open herself to Hanzo, she really wanted to, but… The fear. The anguish, the terror.

Everything would be much easier if she just jumped into the sea.

She wouldn’t have to face their eyes, nor the comments, nor the attempts to make her feel better. She would stop being a dead-weight for Overwatch.

The tablet’s screen turned off, tired of waiting.

Ester stood slowly, her gaze lost among the table, and turned towards the door.

By coincidences of the universe, her eyes tripped with the bag of the sweets shop, and remembered who were those for.

Lúcio.

A small muscle contracted itself to try and form a smile. It didn’t last, but it managed to give a bit of warmth the the girl’s eyes. She took the box with both hands. She would handle them now. If Lúcio was sleep, she would just leave them were he could saw them.

She stepped in the corridor with her head ducked but her eyes watching high, tense. She wondered if Athena was watching her. If she would ask her where was she going. If she would ask her politely but firmly to return to her room and don’t get out until somebody went to fetch her.

But she walked down the hallways and didn’t hear anything apart from her shoeless steps. She sped up, fearing to encounter somebody. In fact, now that she thought about it, it was very probably that Angela was at the medbay. She danced around the contradictory wish for the doctor to be still closed up with the others, listening to whatever Hanzo was telling them. Or maybe there wasn’t anything else to say, but they had decided to have mercy and avoid her until tomorrow. To give her some space. In front of the medbay’s door, she hesitated, but she was more afraid of staying in the corridor than a possible awkward encounter with Angela. With an unsteady step, the door slid open, and with two more long and silent steps, she entered and the door closed behind her.

Nothing moved. Any sound indicated her that somebody was standing up from a chair or bed to see who had come inside, nor any voice called her attention to asked what she wanted. She looked down and thought, ashamed, that she shouldn’t have gone there barefoot. It wasn’t hygienic. Surely she had her soles black. She should have showered. And put on some socks, at least. She wasn’t at her home.

 _I don’t have a home anymore._ , pointed out a deep corner of her mind.

 _It’s true._ , she answered herself raising her head, trying to remember her objective.

Lúcio, yes. She wanted to give him the _neules_.

She followed the noises of the monitors to find him, and upon doing so, she didn’t know what to do. The boy seemed to be sleeping peacefully. A small tube made its way in front of his nose, proportionating oxygen. His skin looked a bit too pale for him. Ester peeked at the screens, uncomfortable. She knew nothing of vital signs, but she didn’t have the feeling of something being off. She left the little box on the bedside table and sat on the modest armchair with her feet on the cushion and worried eyes.

She released a tired sigh. Her eyelids were heavy, her eyes stung. Her stomach complained silently, while her bladder gave her the scold of the century.

She was really tempted of going to the toilet before throwing herself into the sea.

“Hey…”, made a voice suddenly.

Ester rose her head abruptly, reacting with a shudder.

Her alarmed expression relaxed: her gaze sweetened and her lips sported a tried but tender smile.

“Hey.”, she greeted back. Lúcio smiled slightly from the bed. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired.”, he answered in an exhalation. “But… it could… be worst…”

“You don’t have to talk if it’s hard for you.”, Ester hurried to say, standing up. “I… brought you sweets from Barcelona.” She said, picking up the box so he could see it. Carefully, she opened the cover. Lúcio inclined himself a bit to peek at the content: a pile of solid pastry, with tube-alike shape and hollow inside, rolled dangerously towards one side of the recipient. “They are called _neules_. They are like cookies. Don’t expect anything soft. Those are hard, but tender at the same time. It’s hard to explain. You’ll see.”

The girl closed the box and sat. Lúcio had his gaze fixed on her.

“You look… bad…”

“Look who is talking.”, she answered him with a burlesque smile.

But Lúcio did not laugh.

“What’s… wrong…?”

Curious how a question so simple can have such an impact. Before she could realise, tears flowed abundantly through her cheeks, and when she gestured to dry the ones that had already merged on her chin the first hiccup broke out.

It had been years since somebody asked her that question.

“Everything.”, answered Ester between hiccups.

She covered her face with her hands, regretting that answer. She shouldn’t have done it. Surely she was making Lúcio nervous, and he needed rest, no more stress than he already had…

She stood up in a flash to leave.

“Wait!”, he called her. With a shudder, she complied. “You don’t have to… talk about it… if you don’t wanna…”, he said, taking a moment to breath deeply. “Would you like… to stay here…? To sleep or… listen to music… I don’t care… been here all day and… I’m super bored…”, he smiled weakly.

Ester’s shaky lips draw a smile for some second’s decimals before turning back down, but the girl nodded and sat.

 

Somebody touched her shoulder.

Ester awoke with a start, shrinking to get away from the contact. Her eyes centred the standing figure even before of having a clear vision.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you…”

The girl recognized Angela’s voice and gave herself a couple seconds to remove her eye boogers with annoyed expression. She rose her gaze. It seemed like the doctor was waiting for an answer, so she limited herself to realise an angry grump, closing her eyes again and sinking her back into the chair. It hurt. She had the feeling she could feel all of her vertebras.

“What’s up?”, she growled. Discreetly, she opened an eye to check on Lúcio, but it seemed like the Brazilian was alright. Better, in fact. He had recovered some colour.

“Nothing, I was just making sure you two were alright. You can keep sleeping.”, whispered Angela.

Ah, but her bladder had other plans…

“’m going to the toilet.”, she mumbled, standing up and leaving.

Were there communal toilets in the hallways? She didn’t remember… Her head hurt. Oh, yeah. She had cried before falling asleep.

Why?

Oh, yeah.

Barcelona.

Hanzo.

Pau.

The headache gave a turn for the worst. Ester made the last steps to her room staggering to complete the tour with a sprint to the bathroom. And, by surprise of her, the need to vomit rose above the need to pee.

“Ester, do you require help from an agent?”, sing-songed Athena’s soothing voice.

So the AI watched her even when she was in the toilet…

Ester puked again.

“Agent Zarya is coming to assist you.”

It took less than a minute for the Russian to arrive, and she found the girl collapsed in front of the toilet: crying, shaking and coughing.

She gently rested a hand on her back.

“It’s okay, don’t worry. Let it all out.”

Zarya left for a moment, while Ester hovered over the toilet again, and returned with a glass of water.

“Slowly.”, she reminded her, letting her take the glass.

The Catalan took a long sip to get rid of the hellish burning that wouldn’t allow her to stop coughing. It helped to alleviate the horrendous flavour that had installed itself in her mouth, too.

“Was that all?”, asked Zarya.

Ester nodded, but did not move. She lowered the toilet’s cover and leaned her arms on it, letting her head rest against them.

“Do you want me to carry you to the bed?, she asked after a few seconds.

She didn’t know what to answer. She hadn’t even looked her in the eyes in the time the woman had been there.

“I have to pee.”, she mumbled with raspy voice.

“I’ll wait for you outside.”, nodded Zarya, and closed the door.

 _I don’t want you to wait for me_ , she wanted to roar. _Leave me alone, leave me hollow!_

She released a pitiful whine that the older woman ignored.

Ester did what she had to do, but didn’t get out of the bathroom. She waited, and waited, and waited, until two eternities had passed.

And when she finally got out, Zarya was still there, sitting on the bed.

“I want to lay down.”, Ester said, emanating hostility and bad mood.

The Russian rose in silence and sat on the chair. The gilt let herself fall on the mattress, staring at the ceiling and releasing a pained grunt when her back found itself free of its load. Too many hours standing, too much tension…

She wanted to roll: turn her back on Zarya, leave it clear that she didn’t want her presence, but she couldn’t. Her back was the boss at that moment.

So she contented herself with closing her eyes and sealing her lips.

“I’m sorry for what happened to Barcelona.”, said the woman without anyone asking.

Ester didn’t even look at her. “The omics attacked my home, too.”

She waited for an answer that, after a few seconds, intuited would never come, but the girl turned her head to stare at her with sad, empathic eyes.

“I’m sorry.”, she said softly.

Zarya nodded, glad that the Catalan had talked back. “I thought that maybe you would want to know… That there are people willing to eliminate the omnics.”

Ester opened her eyes wide, tensing all of her body, and rose on her elbows.

“What?”, she answered with dry tone.

The woman smiled and nodded vigorously.

“Volskaya is an arms Russian enterprise. It fabricates weapons specially designed to be used against omnics. I thought that you would like to…”

Zarya interrupted herself when the hostility that the girl emanated made itself evident. She had sat up: feet on the floor, impenetrable eyes fixed on her, pressed lips and eyebrows tilted in rage, lowered chin and wild curly hair that gave her a savage look.

“ _Fora_.”, Ester growled, retreating her lips, showing her tooth.

“I thought that…!

“ _FORA!!!_ ”, she yelled standing up, her knees a bit flexed and arms tensed: the combat stance of someone who doesn’t know how to fight.

Zarya and herself knew that the girl wouldn’t have any chance if things got physical, but the yell must had been heard all over the floor and no translation was needed to understand the word.

With her mouth twisted in distaste, or maybe regret, the Russian stood up and exited the room without looking back.

Now Ester boiled in fury. She run to the bed to take the pillow and pressed it against her face, drowning her enraged screams. What the hell had thought, that woman?! That in that moment she cared about what had happened in Barcelona who knows how many years ago?! That she would want revenge?! How could she propose her something like that being in the same team as Zenyatta? The city! Zarya probably already knew about her brother, and she had tried to put the city above him?!

Between her muffled screams and tears that wetted the pillow, she heard a fist banging the door.

“Ester! Are you okay?”, asked a voice, but she couldn’t relate it to a person at the moment. Her head, her eyes, her back; it all hurt too much…

She took the pillow away and raised her head, trying to take in more air and calm down.

“Ester!”, the voice insisted.

She found herself unable to answer. Her breathing wouldn’t allow it. She rose to her feet, hugging the pillow against her chest. She turned on her tablet, which still offered her a blank page, and wrote quickly. She dropped the digital pen and took the tablet with the same hand. With two long steps she reached the door, opened it and rose the device to whoever-was-outside’s face, hiding hers in the process.

She recognized him for his body.

Genji.

“You need painkillers?”, he read.

Ester lowered the tablet and nodded, avoiding eye contact and trying to hide her wet face. She pressed the pillow against her body, muffling hiccups and whines.

Slowly, very slowly, Genji held her between his arms. He didn’t make any force, he didn’t try to retain her: just touched her slightly without saying a thing. He rubbed her back a couple teams with his palm, and with the same slowness with which he had embraced her, he backed away.

The girl couldn’t believe that that gesture had calmed her down.

“I’ll be right back.”, said the cyborg, stepping back to get out in the hallway before leaving at a fast pace towards the medbay.

Ester stood absolutely still for a handful of seconds. The only reason why she entered her room again was to not meet anyone else.

She laid down on the bed, still hugging her pillow, trying not to think about the pain in her head, her back, her chest.

More tears rolled down her cheeks. How was it that she still hadn’t died of dehydration?

 

Genji knocked lightly on her door before entering, despite not waiting for permission to come in. That bothered Ester, but the poor girl was too busy rising on her knees and stretching a desperate hand towards the effervescent glass that the man offered her.

“Angela told me that this should be enough. She asked me to tell you that, if you think you need another kind of medication, she is at your disposition as a doctor.”, explained the cyborg, sitting down.

At the half of his speech Ester had already swallowed all of the glass’s content. She trembled slightly, noticing with relief that the pain in her back and head subsided in intensity.

She flopped onto the mattress, but this time she didn’t turn away to turn her back on her companion. She stood still, gaze lost on a wall.

“Would you like me to leave you alone?”, Genji asked softly.

Ester shook her head, pressing her lips.

“Alright. I’m staying here.”

More tears rolled down the girl’s cheeks, who rolled to hide her face in the pillow.

They spent a while in silence, and Genji opted for trying to distract her subtly.

“May I ask why you yelled?”

“Zarya made me angry.”, she answered with raspy voice. Her lips twisted in disgust. “She started talking about omnics and her city and Volskaya and she didn’t realise that I don’t give a fuck about cities…”, her voice cut off.

_… because I only want my brother._

Genji spent some seconds in silence begore replying.

“I am sorry that she made you feel this way. Zarya hasher experiences, and so, her own ideas, but despite not agreeing about some issues, she is a good person. I am sure she told you that with her best intentions.”

“I don’t care.”, spitted Ester. “I don’t care…”

Another while in silence. This time, it was harder for Genji to bring up the subject.

“Ester… I know you might not want to talk about this, but… It would help us a lot if you explained to us. About your brother. About your life. You don’t have to do it now, of course… But the sooner we talk about it, the sooner it will be done. And maybe this way we can help you.”

The girl shrank on the bed, curling on herself, nearing her legs to her belly and muffling a stress-induced whine.

“Tomorrow.”, Ester said after a hiccup. “Tomorrow.”

“Understood. Would you like me to bring you something? Food, water, a movie?”

She raised her head from the pillow slowly, and nodded.


	12. To talk about it

Hanzo went to fetch her the next morning. Ester had spent de previous day locked in her room, accompanied by various people who, mercifully, had limited themselves to offer their presence.

“Will everybody be there?”, Ester asked nervously, still refusing to step out in the hallway.

“Yes.”, answered Hanzo as softly as he could. “But if you get nervous, you can just ask us to leave. Or hush, or whatever you need at that moment. The only thing we ask of you, and I know it will be hard for you: is for you to not run away from the situation.”

Ester nodded half-heartedly and stepped forward.

She followed Hanzo through the corridors to the conference room, and stiffened in front the closed door.

“Nobody will judge you.”, he encouraged her. “We just want to understand you.”

Okay, yeah, she could work with that.

Ester entered and sat on the empty chair without making any real eye-contact- Nobody said anything, but the atmosphere wasn’t hostile. With a quick glance, she saw Lúcio, but Junkrat and Roadhog weren’t there. It wasn’t a big surprise. Considering their personalities, maybe it was better this way. Hanzo sat next to her and crossed his arms on the table. The girl released a sigh, scratching her forehead.

“Do you remember the video of my accident? The Castellers one?”

They answered soft “yeses”, others just nodded slightly.

“The video’s link is still in my memory.”, said Athena.

“Play it.”

The screen lighted up at the center of the table. Slowly, the human construction built itself. This time, everyone watched how the little Ester climbed on her partner’s shoulders, got to the top, raised her arm towards the sky… And the tower started crumbling.

“Pause.”

The image froze at the moment that the girl, still held by her ankles by the boy below her, fell backwards.

“Do you see the boy?”, a little pause. “He is my brother.”

A shaky exhale escaped her lips.

“But I guess this doesn’t explain everything.”, she hiccupped, staring at the table. “I guess it was… the pression. He was lazy and weaselled out of his chores whenever he could. My parents scolded him until make him cry”. Pause to hiccup. “And then this happened. My parents yelled at him: why didn’t he let me go, why did he hold onto me when it was clear that the Castell was about to fall? And he didn’t know what to answer. I got surgery, I went to rehabilitation, and when I got back home he didn’t looked at me the same. He took me one night and told me that he had accepted that I had kept all good things running in the family. I tried to explain him that no, that that wasn’t true, that it hadn’t been a big thing for me to got operated, that I was sure that they had had a worse time than I…”. Pause to dry some tears and snot. “A week later he threw himself to the train’s rails.”

There Ester leaned forward to lean her head on her arms and cry. Somebody put their hand on her back, and she shrank to get away from the touch. The hand backed down, but returned later even softer. This time the girl did not try to get away.

“What were you doing in Gibraltar?”, asked Lena, her voice almost just a murmur.

An elusive smile and a nervous laughter escaped Ester’s mouth.

“Swimming with dolphins.”, she answered innocently. “I thought of doing something nice before killing myself.”

And she left her head fall between her arms again.

The agents exchanged looks.

“It wasn’t your fault.”, ventured Zenyatta.

“Ha…!”, voiced Ester, raising her head and showing her broken smile. “I already know. It was my parent’s fault.”, her voice broke. “Or that’s the first thing that I thought. But he killed himself, so he is to blame, isn’t he? But what good does to me to blame him? They never left him be. Why couldn’t they left him be…?”

Ester brought a hand to her face and dug her nails into it.

“Are your parents… still alive?”, asked Ana.

Ester made a nervous laugh.

“Right now, sure they aren’t.”

“Are your parents still alive in your time?”, she reformulated the question.

“Yes.”, she growled.

“And you were going to leave them without sons?”, she insisted with a pain in her voice that only mothers thinking about such a terrifying idea could have.

Ester clenched her tooth and fists. With her hand still on her face, one only enraged eye looked at the older woman from the other side of the table.

“It wouldn’t have made a fucking difference!”, she spitted. “Do you think that I went straight to commit suicide?! I tried to get over it, but there wasn’t a motherfucking way to do it, with my parents! They were too busy drowning in the guilt of having killed their son to remember that they had a daughter!”

Her first slammed the table and she stood.

“Ester…”, Hanzo called her when she reached the door, standing up.

“Everything is said!”, she yelled before closing the door behind her.

 

Ester forced herself to not go to her room. She went outside, under a tree, and sat there, doing nothing. She didn’t cry. She was angry. Angry with her parents, with her brother, with the looks on the Overwatch’s agent’s faces!

She looked above, but didn’t find the strength to get up and walk to the viewpoint.

She closed her eyes and leaned her head backwards, resting it against the tree’s trunk.

Hours passed, and nobody went to look for her.

She was grateful for it.

Sun was setting, and the girl was starting to fall asleep, nestled against the tree, when a voice startled her.

“Oi!”, greeting Junkrat, crouching beside her.

Ester muffled a scream, bringing a hand to her chest.

“Jaimie! You scared me!”, she scolded him lightly.

But he didn’t answer, staring at her intensely instead.

“Ana told me you are feeling down.”

The Catalan tensed up, reading a defence for whatever invasive question may came.

Junkrat hid a giggle.

“I have set up some explosions to cheer you up!”, he smiled.

“What?”, mumbled Ester, her eyes opened wide.

“Nothing like a good BOOM to make a bad day turn good!”, he sing-sang, taking a detonator from his belt.

Ester’s heart was beating at one thousand per hour. No no no no no no no no no no! He couldn’t just blow up the base!

“No-!”, she yelled, stretching her arm to take the detonator from him.

With a giggle, the Aussie pressed the button.

Junkrat lost his balance and Ester fell on him. The first explosion echoed among the cliffs, spreading a reddish light on the grass. The second explosion was immediately after, and dyed the grass in gold.

The girl dug her hands on the ground and rose from Jaimie’s naked torso, looking at the sky.

“Oh.”, she did, moving away so the boy could get up.

Those weren’t bombs. Those were fireworks.

Ester stared at them, almost without blinking.

“Do you like ‘em?, asked Junkrat with certain nervousness, sitting beside her.

“A lot.”, she answered in a whisper. She rose a hand to scare a tear away. “Thank you.”

With a satisfied giggle, the Junker repositioned himself to watch the show better.

 

The next two days, Ester was practically hanging from Jaimie’s arm. Slowly she separated from him to go visit Lúcio, play with Hana, go running with Lena. Mei invited her to share the _neules_ she still had. Zarya apologised for her inappropriate comment; Genji praised her evasion plan. McCree told her, excited, how he had seen the weapon among the sheets when he was looking for the green sky and how he had been able to save Hanzo thanks to that. Satya looked at her with interest from afar. Ana made her cookies and asked her how was she doing regularly. Nobody brought up the subject of Ester’s brother directly, and she did not make any comment nor suicide attempt. Reinhardt came by from time to time and cheered her up without apparent reason. Zenyatta greeted her cordially and invited her to share the thoughts that might anguish her.

Soon a new routine was stablished: Ester woke up and turned on her comm., explaining her dream. Athena recorded the narration, and if somebody was connected, they could hear it on live, but either way they gathered together, also to observe and evaluate how many details Ester could retain in how much time. A few missions were organized, so the girl had the occasion to see practically everybody in their combats uniforms.

A dream with spiders denounced the imminent presence of Widowmaker.

Ester could see her from the conference room in Gibraltar, thanks to a camera that Hanzo had attached at his _kyudo-gi_.

“Is her skin… blue?”

“Yes.”, answered Winston without giving it more importance.

An electrical storm translated into the presence of someone named Sombra.

Thanks to the dream, Torbjörn decided not to install turrets at the rearguard: fact that allowed them to retreat without any setbacks. Jack busted her lurking among the alleyways and scared her away with a few shots.

An elephant, or any animal of great dimensions and potentially dangerous, indicted Doomfist’s presence.

Jack ran to make a call. The next day he informed that Orisa and Effi and intercepted and repelled them successfully. That was how the existance of the youngest Overwatch member, of only eleven years old, was introduced to Ester.

And finally, the barn owl. The dream that made Ester wake up with a violent trembling, with the feeling that something was absolutely wrong. It denounced the presence of Reaper. The secrecy with which that character was treated didn’t evade the girl’s attention, but every time she asked about him the subject ended up changing.

She didn’t always dream of persons. Places, too.

A colossal robot factory; a building, elegant and high; a city of Asiatic looks; a Japanese castle (she insisted very convinced, because she was sure to remember the pink cherry trees and the architecture stile); a snowed place that seemed to be very, very cold, so much, that she had woken up with a slight tremble even in the middle of August. An Egyptian temple; an abandoned city.

With that method, they had already retrieved two weapon’s cargos; they had intercepted four Talon’s movements and two from the Shimada Gumi and had prevented an encounter between Los Muertos and Vishkar. Ester didn’t quite catch up the hullabaloos between enterprises, but she decided to trust the people of Overwatch.

They offered her to go to the market again, and she accepted, knowing that it was a slight test of trust. Despite being in her best behaviour, all eyes were on her.

So nobody saw how a tourist hooked up a dispositive behind the truck’s wheel.

Ester managed to get them to buy a couple rose bushes to plant in the garden: a red one and a white one. They planted them together in the afternoon, and later the girl spent a long while caressing the red petals.

 

That day, Ester awoke without remembering anything. The sensation persisted for some minutes. Slowly, she remembered details that became clearer. When she sat down at the breakfast’s table with everybody (new ritual so everybody could hear what she had dreamed), she finished composing her dream.

“What have you dreamed today?”, this time asked Mei. It looked like the agents took turns to ask her the same every morning.

“The end of the world.”, she answered, accepting the cup of milk that they were offering her.

Everybody tensed up, some backing up a little and exchanging glances, uneasy.

“Uhm, should we be worried?”, McCree dared to ask.

“Uh… No.”, she answered naturally. “It’s not the first time I dream about that. It never happens.”, she soothed them, taking a sip.

“Was the world ending for any reason in particular?”, pressed Jack, standing with his cup of coffee.

“No. No, there wasn’t an explanation. It was juts… It was night. I was in the streets; there were containers on fire, people ran and screamed. I was walking down the street and cars passed by. And the world was ending, everybody knew that. But I was calm. We got on a train, and people cheered up and shouted in joy because they thought they were gonna be saved. But I knew that wasn’t true. I knew we were all going to die, but I was calm. And I said nothing. I let them be happy before dying.”, she explained before taking a cookie.

“So… there is no immediate danger?”, asked Winston.

Ester shook her head.

“That I know, in my experience: no.”

“And what does ‘in my experience’ mean?”, said Hanzo.

Ester looked at him and tilted her head a bit.

Zenyatta floated up and down to call her attention and offer her an encouraging look, inviting her to share her thoughts.

“It’s a reminder. I think.”

“And says…?”, pressed Lena with an uneasy smile.

The girl rose her head to answer. “It’s okay to keep a secret.”

A bunch of seconds passed in silence.

“You are not going to start hiding things from us, are you?”, asked Zarya, notably annoyed.

“It’s not that.”, Ester rushed to say. “Do you know those movies of time travel when a character travels to change a thing but that thing ends up happening because they went to try and change it? I think it might be that. I think that maybe, to keep the next premonition from happening, I don’t have to tell you.”

A few more seconds of silence and reflection.

“I think the wisest thing is for you to tell us.”, Genji said softly. “We have been doing it like that until now and it has served us well. If you are afraid of telling it, maybe you could explain it to one person? This way not everybody would know, but you would have another view point on of you should tell the others or not. Anyways, the final decision is yours. We have been believing your words for weeks: if you come a morning and tell us you have dreamt nothing, it’s not like if we could debate it to you.”

“Don’t think so, it’s not like I like hiding stuff. But… I have to think about it.”, she answered with something akin to shyness, nursing her cup.

 

“¡ _Te lo dije!_ ”, yelled Sombra: “ _¡Te lo dije, te lo dije, te lo dije!_ ”, she sang-song jumping a bit. “It’s impossible that they knew that I would try to flank them! The newbie is a prophet!”, she laughed excitedly and displayed a screen on her hand:

“Dream archives.”, Athena’s voice sounded: “Entry 110876, 10:38.”

“I was in a desert.”, echoed Ester’s sleepy voice. “And I heard thunder. Loooooots of thunder. But the skies were clear. And when I turned around, it was covered in clouds. I could barely see anything. Only lighting. And underneath it, a city in ruins, half buried under the sand. And… And I think that’s all. I don’t remember anything else. A storm.”

Reaper released a slight growl.

“Come on! _¡Dilo!_ ”

The man stood in front of the table where his principal effectives sat.

“I want her.”, his voice growled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, yestarday was Book Day here in Catalonia. I couldn't translate nor go outside because I have exams, but better late than never.  
> Action is going to start soon, and by soon I mean next chapter.
> 
> You thought I was cultural spaming you, but it was me, an acutal plot!  
> Kinda.
> 
> Also, I'll make you notice that if you pair up Junkrat and Ester, the ship name can be "Junker"... eh? eh? (Who was the idiot that left me alone with English?)  
> The fireworks scene is brought to you by Katy Perry.
> 
> Anyways, there will be some long conversations in Spanish in the future, and I would like to know your opinons, because this fic is meant to be fully enjoyed by plurilingual people, but I feel bad if i put the translations at the end of the chapter and you have to go up and down to know what is going on. As i see it, my options are:  
> -Leave it as it is and put the translations at the end of the chapter.  
> -Try to write the original conversation in a half of the page and the transaltion on the other half, so original and translation can be seen at the same time.  
> -I translate the whole conversation directly.
> 
> I would much rather not do the last option, honestly. But if you want to share your opinions, they will be noted.
> 
> Thank you everybody for reading. Every time I get a kudo i get blushed.
> 
> Gotta go, I should be studying.  
> Have a great day! :D


	13. Nightmares come true

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: EXPLICIT SUICIDE ATTEMPT

_The light that illuminated the graveyard was grey. It seemed like the air was saturated with ashes and dust. Ester didn’t move: she didn’t even have a body, but the gravestones and niches paraded in front of her. She wanted to leave. She was aware of that. Suddenly, all gravestones and niches went away, and a new tomb appeared, raised above the others. It was the only one on her sight, but it was too far away to read what was written. At that point, Ester got legs. She neared it with heavy steps and read the name below the Overwatch emblem. She was surprised of being able to read the name in Spanish. In fact, she had had a classmate with the same surname when she was little. She rose her hand to touch the name._

_And then a hand grabbed at her ankle._

_Ester screamed, got rid of the hand with a kick and moved backwards until hitting something. Upon turning, she found herself looking at Jack, dressed with his combat clothes. The girl turned again, worried about that thing that had tried to get out of the grave._

_But she wasn’t in the graveyard anymore. She was in a corridor on the base._

_“What’s wrong?”, asked Jack, abnormally carefree._

_She turned again to look at him, but before she could open her mouth to answer, he rose his head, as if something has called his attention, and shoved her behind him._

_Shots echoed through the hallways. Jack fell to the floor, bleeding. Ester turned slowly to discover a black figure, a king, shooting at Jack’s corpse._

_Laughing._

Ester rolled out of bed and exited the room at a spectacular speed for somebody who has been awake for two seconds. She barely noticed that at the other side of the windows it was still dark. The girl fisted her hands and breathed through her nose. She climbed the stairs as fast as she could, to the office’s hallway.

“Jack!”, she yelled. “Jack!!!”

Ana’s head popped out of her door when she passed.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?”, she asked her, but when she didn’t get an answer she followed her.

“JACK!!!”, Ester yelled again.

Genji arrived from another corridor, alerted by the shouts.

“Is everything alright?”

He didn’t get an answer either, and the girl followed her course.

Before she got to her destintion, Freeha and Mei joined the committee, both in pyjamas and trying to shake the sleep from their eyes.

“JACK!!!”, Ester yelled yet again.

His door opened and he leaned into the hallway.

“What, What?!”

He tensed when the Catalan stood in front of him, solid as a tower, and stared at him with a mix of annoyance and worry.

“Who the fuck is Reyes and why did he laugh while he killed you?!”

 

Nobody answered her question with words, but everybody left as if they had rockets up their asses and sealed the entire base. Ester chased them, yelling and demanding answers, complaining with lots of energy when they blocked the exit to the garden and closed all the hangars firmly. Only then Lena picked her up and dragged her by the arm to a room she hadn’t seen before, the door of which was hidden behind a panel in Torbjörn’s workshop.

“This is the safe room.”, she told her, making sure she was paying attention. “If something ever happens, if someone breaks into the base and the alarms blare, you have to come here running, do you hear me? You leave whatever you are doing, come here and close the door, and don’t get out until you run out of food and water.”

“And… And what about you?”

“Don’t wait for us.”, Lena cut her. “We know how to take care of ourselves. Do you understand?”

Ester frowned.

“Repeat it to me and you’ll be dismissed.”

“Come here running. Close myself in and don’t get out until I have no other option.”

“Very well.”, nodded the woman, and let her go.

“Who is Reyes?”, she asked again, letting her growing bad mood flourish.

The British pressed her lips.

“Lena!”, complained Ester.

“Yes, yes, we will tell you, dammit! Come on!”

The girl followed her: her short and heavy steps letting go her irritation, and they finally arrived at the security room, where Jack supervised… whatever Winston and Satya were doing.

“Who the fuck is Reyes?!”, she roared for a bazillion time.

Jack turned at stared at her.

“We believe he is Reaper.”

_Oh, merda._ Shit.

It took a good handful of seconds for Ester to get to the next thought.

“Do you… Do you know him?”

“I knew him.”, he nodded before turning around. “We will assume your two-days-rule and keep the base under lockdown. If three days go by and there is no signal of an attack, we will reopen the base. Until then I want you to stay close to the min building and to have a bodyguard. Don’t look at me like that. It will only be two days. Something else you want to share?”, he added, turning again to look at her with interest.

“Yes. Stay away from me.”

Winston and Satya stopped working all of a sudden and turned to look at them with wide eyes.

“Reyes shot you while you were with me. Avoid me.”, she clarified.

Jack studied her expression a moment before answering.

“Understood.”

Insecure and tired, Ester took her leave.

“Can you take first round with her?”, he asked to Lena. “Keep her distracted, make sure she doesn’t have time to overthink things.”

The woman nodded, and left.

 

Next day was a mess of useless strategies to entertain Ester. They offered her games, movies, series, documentaries, books, tools, physic and mental exercises.

Nothing worked.

It seemed that they didn’t realise that seeing them in combat gear, carrying their weapons all around what Ester was beginning to consider her home, made her nervous.

As a result, the girl vomited her lunch.

“You shouldn’t worry that much. There is the possibility that it is a false alarm, right?”, tried Angela, wearing her Valkyrie armour.

“Say the ones who have sealed the base…”, she answered.

Nobody could debate her that.

The girl’s nerves got even worse when the sun set. It was Lúcio who noted her irregular breathing and, discreetly, told her a bit about his life in Rio de Janeiro to stop her from having an anxiety attack.

When night came, Fareeha offered her to spend the night with her. Ester didn’t refuse (she couldn’t, nor wanted to), but she decided to play as if she didn’t notice the two persons standing guard at the corridor all night long. She didn’t comment either how she had seen the Egyptian’s rocket launcher hidden in the closet, but those factors didn’t help her to stay calm.

It took her long to fall sleep. She woke up at five in the morning, having dreamt nothing, and knew she wouldn’t fall sleep again, but she laid still to not disturb Fareeha who, by the way, snored. It’s not as if she could complain: she had drooled all over the pillow.

Around six the woman got up and went to have a shower, so Ester sat up and explored the room a bit. She opened the closet and touched the weapon with a shaky finger, as if it were about to explode. She retreated and closed the door as silently as she could. When Fareeha got out of the bathroom, she found her staring at a poster.

“Do you like it?”, she asked. “That’s Reinhardt.”

The girl turned around to look at her with wide eyes.

“Ah, yes?”

“He was young once, too.”, she smiled with nostalgia in her eyes. “The poster is a reproduction. I had the original when I was little, but… I lost it.”

“Did everybody had posters? Your mother too?”, she asked, interested.

“Only the most photogenic.”, she smiled again, but her expression broke abruptly. “Would you like to take a shower? I have a soap I am sure you will love.”, she changed subject before Ester could ask.

She agreed because she couldn’t think of anything else to do. Indeed, she loved the smell of the soap and, surprisingly, it settled her in a good mood.

She didn’t remember the situation until she got out of the room and stood face to face with Satya, who introduced herself as the morning bodyguard.

The Indian followed her in silence at a respectful distance.

As soon as she realised that Ester froze where she was.

“Don’t follow me from behind.”, she told her with an uneasy expression. “Walk by my side.”

Satya didn’t refuse neither made any comment, but she appreciated the efforts the younger did to maintain a conversation and show interest for her hobbies and preferences. They had breakfast together, and when Ester asked about her designs for structures, the woman decided that architecture wasn’t considered a subject of historic relevance and, therefore, there wasn’t any issue about illustrating the time traveller about that.

So Satya spoke, and spoke, and spoke until Ester got bored but she couldn’t find any chance to change subject; until Mei arrived to relieve her for bodyguard duty. The girl believed herself saved but found herself trapped in another conversation, this time about global warming. She already knew the basics but she showed interest in the CO2 emissions during the middle century.

“I thought all was about to get stabilized with the laws of environmental protection of 2050.”, she commented, her brows furrowing.

“We all thought that. But then the Crisis happened, and the governments found an excuse to postpone the mesures.”, Mei sighed sadly.

Ester snorted angrily.

Hana appeared to relieve Mei.

Genji appeared to relieve Hana.

She had managed to convince the ninja to let her throw his _shurikens_ for a while. It was late in the afternoon, and Ester was feeling calmer. She still had her innate mistrust of the night, still. Right when she was starting to throw the ninja stars at an adequate speed and angle, a noise startled her so much that she screamed and dropped all the weapons. A red light bathed all the walls. Ester turned around, looking at Genji with terrified eyes.

The cyborg didn’t waste a second: he recovered the fallen _shurikens_ and took the girl by the arm, dragging her outside the training room.

“Head down and stay close! Don’t get near the windows!”, he yelled above the alarm.

Ester wasn’t able to nod, but she allowed him to drag her upstairs.

She heard shots and explosions.

She couldn’t stop herself.

“I’m scared!”, she cried.

“Everything will be alright”, Genji answered without looking at her nor stopping.

The cyborg turned a corner, but before he could pull Ester in he turned and pushed her backwards, dodging a bullet shower.

Ester screamed. Genji took hold of her again and run to another hallway. She looked behind, fearful of someone chasing them, but everything she saw was Reinhardt: raising his gigantic hammer, ready to charge to those who had shot at them.

They ascended another floor. They were at the same height as the labs and workshops, but it was still far. Ester’s heart raced at one thousand per hour. She was certain she would have a heart attack. Genji brought her through the insides of the building, but an ice wall blocked the path. Ester didn’t have time to observe it: the cyborg was already heading for another route. They didn’t have other option apart from going through the corridor next to the garden. The corridor FULL of windows.

“I want you to sprint, do you hear me? Don’t look outside, keep going!”

Ester nodded, and run. But she looked. Of course she looked.

She saw the black choppers above the base, the soldiers, wearing black and masked coming down from them, running through the garden, stepping on the roses. At the corridor on the other side she could see Junkrat shooting explosives everywhere. She could see Hana’s meka in action. Torbjörn’s turrets. She thought she had heard an animal roar, and she guessed it was Winston. For a few seconds, her comm. came online and she could hear Jack yelling orders, Lena informing about her movements.

Without realising it, Ester slowed down.

“Watch out!”, Genji yelled while jumping between her and the window, right in time to deflect a bullet that would have pierced through her arm. Ester rose her gaze, and she saw her.

Widowmaker.

“Keep going!”, the cyborg ordered. “I’ll cover you!”

Ester started running, more decided than ever to run away from that chaos and madness. She tried to open a door, but it seemed blocked and there wasn’t any way to open it, so she took another corridor.

She was alone. Alone, and scared, and tired, and lost, and she didn’t like that she wanted to go back home back home back home…

She reached the workshop hallway. Everything would be alright. She would enter the safe room and when she got out everybody would be waiting for her and they would hug her and the next day she would tell them what she had dreamt and they would talk about it while they had breakfast.

Blinded by those thoughts, she didn’t see the black figure of white face at the end of the corridor. Exiting her delirium, Ester noticed it and froze, with her eyes fixed on the two great guns, stuttering, trying to figure out what to do.

“You.”, the figure growled, unmoving. “Come here.”

Ester stepped back.

“Get down!”, yelled a voice behind her.

She let her knees collapse, hoping that that would get her out of the way fast enough. Shrinking against the wall, she heard three heavy shots at high speed, and suddenly a metal arm was pulling her away, behind a red fabric and a protective leg.

McCree.

“Leave the lady alone.”, growled the cowboy, pointing the figure with Peacekeeper.

“No.”, the other answered plainly, raising his armed arms and making ghostly steps.

Jesse stood up and shot two times more, that passed through Reaper without harming him.

“Shit!”, he yelled, feeling his belt for a flashbang.

Reaper shot one of his shotguns, and the bullet dug itself into McCree’s flesh arm, who couldn’t keep holding his gun and fell to the ground.

When she heard his pained scream, Ester brought her hands to her mouth, ready to cry.

The Talon agent walked even closer, to Jesse’s feet, who had fallen backwards and still tried to get a flashbang with his cybernetic arm, and leaned forwards, pointing at his forehead. Ester rose on her knees, ready to push the gun away, make Reaper lose balance, whatever was necessary so he wouldn’t kill him.

But it wasn’t necessary.

A whistle echoed through the corridor, and three rockets impacted against the invader’s back, who released a scream only to disappear instantly in a cloud of black dust. Ester turned her head and saw him, at the end of the corridor: Jack, dressed with his jacket and the tactical visor, his riffle still up in the air.

“No!”, she yelled. “No, leave! Go!”

“Get in the workshop!”, he yelled back. “Move!”

Ester rose on a shaky leg. “Leave!”, she insisted. “Please!”

The word started dying on her tongue as her eyes opened wide and the fear blocked her breathing.

Behind Jack, a cloud of black dust was forming.

She rose her arm and pointed behind him, being her reflexes faster than her capacity to form sentences, despite her lips moving without emitting a sound. Better this way: it would have been an amalgamation between Catalan, English and Spanish.

Jack was half turned when the noise of two shots echoed all around them.

The soldier stood still for a couple seconds. Then he released groan. And fell.

“No!”, shouted Ester. Her heart, her lungs, her stomach, everything was about to come out through her mouth.

Reaper rose his guns again, aiming at Jack.

“ _PARA!!!!”_ , she screamed. But it wasn’t the girl’s order what made him stop, no. The word was Catalan, but it was the same in Spanish, and in that moment it didn’t need translation.

It was the sound of a charged revolver.

The man in black turned his head abruptly and aimed his other gun.

Ester had Peacekeeper between her hands.

And the canon was resting at the joint between neck and head.

“If you don’t stop, I’ll kill myself!”, she threatened him with tears in her eyes.

“You won’t dare.”, he growled.

“You want me, don’t you? And you want me alive, right? You can’t even begin to imagine how much of a daughter-of-a-bitch I can be when I want to.”, she answered between tooth pressed with rage, fingers moving nervously around the trigger.

Ready to pull it.

Reaper lowered the shotgun aimed at her.

“Come.”

Ester stood up with the gun still under her head.

“Leave the revolver.”

“When you leave Jack.”

“When you tell the cowboy to stop his fidgeting.”

“Jesse, stop what you are doing.”, she said without turning around.

“You can’t pretend me to…”

“Jesse!”, she roared. “Stop. Be still. Please.”

She didn’t hear an answer, but Reaper moved his head in a way that made her understand that they could proceed.

Ester neared him a few steps more and, slowly, he stopped aiming at Jack.

Only to point at Jesse.

“Ei!”, she roared, “If you hurt them, I’ll kill myself!”

“Just in case.”, he answered. The girl showed her tooth, showing her disagreement. “Leave the gun, do not resist, and I promise you that I will get out of here without shooting at anyone else.”

“Tsk!”, sounded Ester. “I come with you, but not because I believe your word.”

She let Peacekeeper fall behind her, partly so Reaper couldn’t use it against her, partly so it was as closer to McCree as possible. She passed by Jack’s side, looking at him with worry. Was he breathing? She couldn’t see it. She couldn’t stay and look him over, because Reaper grabbed her by an arm and pulled her over his shoulder as if she were a sack of potatoes.

The Catalan yelled in surprise and tried to change position, get more comfortable, get up a bit so blood wouldn’t rush to her head.

“Ester!”

Her gaze met Jesse’s.

“Help Jack!”, she yelled at full capacity. “Save him!!!”

“Reaper here.”, her abductor said. “I have the package. We’re leaving.”

 

In the route she made as a package, Ester was able to see a few Overwatch agents.

D.Va and Reinhardt swoop entire corridors of enemies.

Hanzo and Genji jumped around the roofs, in a showdown against Widowmaker.

Lena slipped between enemy lines and left before anyone could figure out the mayhem she had caused.

Pharah pested the troops from the sky.

Ester walked her gaze frantically among them, looking for her.

Where was she, where was she, where was she…?

“Mercy!!!”, she shouted her codename.

Angela heard her and interrupted her run towards Zarya to look at her in shock.

“Look for Jack!”, she shouted. “Go with Jack!”

“Shut it.”, growled Reaper, but he didn’t attack her.

Suddenly he left her fall at the ground of the garden and secured a harness around her waist.

The man did a quick signal, and half a second later Ester hadn’t earth under her anymore, but she was being pulled up towards a chopper black as night. Reaper hang onto another rope and climbed up behind her.

The men in the chopper took her by her arms and made her sit, fastening her belt. All of them were armed and had their faces covered. Ester looked around, nervous, while Reaper got up and sat opposite to her.

“They won’t come to rescue you.”, he said to her.

But that wasn’t what she was searching for. Right next to the chopper’s door, there was a handrail with a vertex corner.

Yes, it looked sharp enough.

“Did you think the suicide threat was a bluff?”, she allowed herself to ask with the smuggest smile she could put on.

Right before pulling her head backwards and hearing the sickening noise of her own skull cracking against the handrail.


	14. The train station

_Ester was conscious of a long while of silence and darkness. Or at least, that’s what it seemed to her. In an instant she was no-where, and the next she walked through a train station platform, looking for a bench to sit. It was sunny and some lonely clouds passed by, floating slowly. A light breeze made the temperature strangely nice._

_Jack sat beside her._

_Ester stared at him, but he didn’t look back at her. He didn’t seem aware of her presence. A few seconds later, an old train arrived and opened its doors._

_Jack stood up._

_The girl’s arm launched towards the solider, holding him firmly by the wrist._

_Then he noticed her._

_“Ester.”, he said, furrowing his brow in worry. “I have to go.”_

_“No.”, she replied firmly. “Stay.”_

_He pulled a bit. “The train will leave.”_

_“Not yet.”, she insisted. “Sit down. Wait ‘till the advertisement.”_

_Jack turned to look at the train, and then at her, unsure._

_“Won’t you stay to keep me company?”, Ester asked._

_Jack sat next to her again, but she didn’t let go of him._

_“I have to go.”, he said, looking at the open carriage’s door._

_“Wait.”, she kept insisting, thinking of some way to distract him. “Would you like me to sing you a song? I know a song about a little soldier, in my native language. I think you will like it.”_

_"Ester, I don’t understand Catalan…”, he answered with a mix of confusion and sorrow._

_She held his gaze. “Jack, I don’t think language barriers will be a problem here.”_

_He stared at her, clueless._

_“I am hearing you in Catalan. I’m pretty sure you hear everything I say in English.”, she stated._

_He seemed confused. He looked at the train again, the only thing that was clear to him._

_“Why won’t you let me leave?”, he asked, and there was almost desperation in his voice._

_“Because I already let my brother go.”, she answered, swallowing a lump in her throat._

_“I will sing you the song, alright? Will you listen until I’m done? Please?”_

_Jack turned to look at her, even more at a loss._

_“Alright.”_

_“Right.”, Ester smiled. She backed off a bit and relaxed the hand that hold the solider to massage his hand slightly. The song she had thought of was slow and long, pretty nostalgic. At that moment she didn’t care if the lyrics caused an emotional impact on Jack. She just wanted time:_

_Listen the song of the little solider_

_Who through a ship’s window_

_Sees how seagulls fly!_

_And it’s not as if he knows a lot, the little solider,_

_But, if seagulls fly,_

_That must mean that earth is near._

_And so near it must be that the captain comes down_

_And tries not to look nervous_

_While he ends the instruction:_

_“Concentrate, little soldiers, be cautious_

_And hang onto life with tooth and nails”._

_Already at the deck, the men pray._

_Already at the deck, the men pray._

_And makes an amen, barely certain, the little soldier,_

_And pets his rifle,_

_Trying to not think anything._

_From prow the hills grow,_

_“little solider, bravery, bravery,_

_That depends of people like you the luck of the world”._

_But “if an enemy bullet crosses the wind_

_And pierces my brain”,_

_Thinks the little solider,_

_“the waves will drag me_

_And a thousand colourful fishes_

_Will fight to devour my flesh”._

_And that’s when he thinks “I’m going to hide;_

_When they won’t look, I’m going to hide”._

_But they always look, and the ship is halting,_

_The hatches are open_

_And, in a second, the sea gets flooded_

_With soldiers shooting at infinity_

_With a little soldier in the middle,_

_Who recharges while insulting the enemy._

_And between bomb and bomb everything’s going quite well_

_Until one falls right beside him._

_First he says “luck, that was close…”,_

_But then he feels a strange pain on his back_

_And when he touches it all of his arm is stained with blood._

_Turns his head from side to side._

_Sits on the sand and rests._

_And while the damn medic arrives, the little solider_

_Calms himself repeating_

_What will he do, where will he go, if he survives:_

_“I will go to my mother well dressed_

_And, before anything, I’ll have to ask her_

_To forgive me for treating her always in that way;_

_I will go to Margarida to make her a son_

_Only to see him intuit_

_That I love him more than I love myself”._

_The song ended, and Jack didn’t move. Ester had sung in low and tender voice, her eyes nailed on the soldier’s raspy hand._

_“Did you like it?”, she asked, clearing her throat._

_“Yes…”, he answered. He didn’t look concentrated. More like dizzy._

_Ester rose her head and looked around, searching for the entrance to the train station. The train was still there, with its doors open, but she decided to ignore it for the moment._

_“Come.”, she said, grabbing at his wrist again._

_Jack didn’t resist as the girl dragged him towards the building._

_“Should I… get in?”, he asked again, looking at the train._

_“No.”, she answered firmly. “Look at me.”, she ordered, turning her head to make eye contact. “You are not taking any train today; do you hear me? Not today. They are waiting for you outside.”_

_And she halted at the doors of the station._

_They looked towards the other side, the one that lead to the street._

_Angela was looking at them with a hand over the glass door._

_“Mercy…?”, voiced Jack._

_“Go with her.”, Ester said, letting him go._

_He stared at her, bringing a hand to his torso._

_Remembering._

_“You… You are not here…”, he mumbled._

_“Not anymore.”, she nodded. “Now you really have to go, Jack.”, she insisted, placing a hand on his back to push him._

_And he resisted._

_With a quick movement he took her wrist and rose her arm, holding her._

_“Reaper…”, he growled angrily before staring right at her eyes with a spark of sadness, which he put out with determination and trust. “We will come for you. I swear it.”_

_Ester allowed herself to sport a sad smile._

_“Jack.”, she sighed, turning a bit so her free arm could point the train: “I don’t need a rescue.”_

_The soldier’s eyes opened wide in realization, fact that the girl took advantage of to get rid of him and push him inside the building._

_The doors opened to absorb him and he fell in Angela’s arms._

_And the two of them disappeared._

_Ester was left alone with the train._

_She turned immediately, knowing that there was no point in waiting. Nobody would come for her._

_“Well, it’s just a train trip. Nothing dangerous. I will be able to sit wherever I want.”, she said to herself, walking towards the transport with her eyes low. She climbed the first step. “I hope it as a nice view.”_

_A hand smashed her face, blocking the path and forcing her to step backwards._

_“Ai!”, she complained, covering her face with a few seconds of delay. “What…?!”, she interrupted herself when she saw the short brown-haired bot standing inside the carriage, blocking the door._

_“_ Hola _, Ester.”, he greeted._

_She was not able to reply._

_“It’s been a hell of a long time since the last time we saw each other and you are not going to say hello?”, he smirked._

_“I’ve missed you.”, she blurted._

_“Me too. I’m sorry if I made you feel bad…”_

_“You killed yourself, Pau!”, she spitted. “You left me alone with mom and dad!”_

_“Ja.”, he answered, lowering his gaze. “At that moment… I didn’t care.”_

_Ester snorted angrily._

_“Look, I don’t care. I’m tired. Let’s get a sit and we will talk…”_

_“No.”, he interrupted her, blocking her path. “You are not getting on.”_

_“Pau!”, she complained._

_“No, cry-baby. Or maybe you don’t want to go back with the friend that you just let go?”_

_“I’m not with them. Not anymore. Let me come with you, come on.”, she insisted, trying to get in again._

_“What’s up? Are you so_ cagueta _that you are not going to try to fight for what you want?”_

_“You are nobody to tell me that! Do you hear me?! Nobody!”, the girl roared._

_“I’m the one who surrendered. And you see what that made for me.”_

_“To avoid a hell of a lot of suffering?”, she counterattacked._

_“It’s part of life, you see: if you refuse a part, you refuse all of it.”_

_“Yes, yes, yes, very well, I refuse life. Let me get on.”_

_“No.”_

_“Pau!!!”_

_“Ester!!!”_

_“What?!”_

_Suddenly the boy’s expression relaxed and he rested a hand on her shoulder. The first contact in years._

_“Everything will be alright.”, he said sweetly. And stepped back._

_The train’s doors closed. The motor started, and it left the station._

_Ester stood there, still, with hundreds of words in her mouth._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: La cançó del soldadet, by Els Manel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSkB8Ed2cUM
> 
> The song ends abruptly, my personal interpretation is that the solider dies, and that's why his thoughts end like that,


	15. The land of the living

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shortest chapter ever!!
> 
> The next is literally 19 pages long, so it's going to take me forever to translate :p  
> Wish me luck with my driving lessons, college, and current obsession with Jason Todd

Ester awoke slowly. She didn’t open her eyes for a while. First thing she did was bring a hand to her head, which retracted immediately upon a) touching a dressing and b) inflict herself an intense pain.

“Au!”, she whined, squishing her eyelids and bringing her hands over her stomach, holding onto her arms in search for comfort.

“You have done something very stupid.”, growled Reaper’s voice.

Ester opened an eye and looked around.

They were alone in a room with grey walls. There wasn’t any window. Only the bed where she was laying and a toilet.

A cell.

“It hasn’t been useless.”, she sighed in pain.

“You cracked your skull.”

“Guay.”, she answered, releasing a giggle that could have gotten everybody on edge.

“Hm. You speak Spanish?”, he asked when he heard the word.

“Ahà.”, she replied, closing her eyes and turning on her side, enjoying the coldness of the white sheets. “Castilian.”, she specified. “You?”

“It’s none of your business.”

“Human relationships don’t work this way, you know?”, she said after a beat of silence.

“I’m not really interested in your wellbeing.”

“Oh, but you should be. Because you want me alive, don’t you?”, she answered, opening an eye. He held her gaze. Or that’s what she guessed, because he was wearing his mask and she couldn’t see his eyes. “This is what’s going to happen: as soon as I’m conscious of what’s going on around me, I will register what is happening as a danger slash stressful situation. When that happens, I will lose my appetite. I will cry every night. First I will puke the solids. Then the liquids. I will spend most of the day sleeping. And then I’ll die.”

“And you know all that, because…”

“Because I’m like that. It has happened me other times.”

“You don’t look dead.”

“Not because I haven’t tried.”

“Hm. And, hypothetically, what should I do to avoid you of falling into this… state?”

“A nice environment would be a good start. Entertainment. Someone to talk to.”

“Will you collaborate thoroughly if I meet your conditions?”

“No idea. At least I will be alive to consider it, yes? In fact, I don’t even now what you want me for.”

“Talon is-“

“Could you explain it in another moment?”, she interrupted him. “Really I have been doing an effort to understand what you are saying for a while now… And I’m not saying this to make things difficult for you…”

“Hn.”, he sounded. “Sleep.”

And he left.


	16. Talon's intern

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who us a sucker for you guys!
> 
> me *has a chemestry exam tomorrow*: yeah it looks like a great time to spend these precious hours translating
> 
> In this house we believe in GGG: Good Guy Gabe

They left her be for two days.

She received visits from a medic who, faced with the girl’s cooperation in all medical procedures, decided not to be rude.

The problem started when they brought her meals.

Effectively: she ate a spoonful of her first lunch.

Ten minutes later it was out.

She drank all the water, though.

“Eat.”, said the medic, bringing a dinner for sensitive stomachs.

“I have nauseas.”, she replied, trying to get away of the bad odor that all kind of foods suddenly emitted. “I really want to eat, but I can’t. Could you change it for a pear? A milkshake?”

“You will vomit the lactic.”

“Mind is capricious. And really: if I put something solid in my mouth, I’ll puke. I don’t like puking.”

Ester brought her hand slowly to the bandage. She was pale, and her abdominal muscles were in constant tension.

“Maybe you have a virus.”

“You are the medic. You’ll know.”

 

What surprised more the cell guards, were the cries.

Despite not having any windows, the girl was as punctual as a clock. Every day, when the sun set, her cardiac pace rose almost to its maximum and Ester cried, prey of anxiety attacks. She sat, grabbed her head, got up, walked around the room, tried to open the door, screamed for help and company and returned to the bed to melt until she fell asleep.

“She looks like a caged animal.”, commented Sombra. “I mean: look at her! We don’t even have to torture her, she does it herself!”

“All of this would end sooner if you simply used the same procedure as me.”, said Widowmaker, watching the cell’s recording.

“Maybe.”, grumbled Reaper. “But if we can have her by the good way, that’s how we’ll do it.”

“And what will you do? Offer her candies until she swats her tail upon seeing you?”, mocked the Mexican.

“Oh? Maybe this isn’t exactly what we do with you?”, Reaper replied slowly.

Sombra’s offended face didn’t have and will never have a price.

 

Ester sat on the bed, wrapped in her blanket, gaze lost somewhere on the floor. That was her new natural state. At first the medic has thought it might have been because of brain damage, but after a few tests he concluded that no. That was just the way she was.

Reaper opened the door without knocking, as always, and stood a few steps away from her. She met his gaze slowly.

“Come.”

“I’m tired.”, she answered, tilting her head back to lean against the wall.

“Don’t you want to go out?”

Ester turned her head in the fastest move she had made in days, interested.

“Really?”

“Yes.”, he nodded. “But don’t try anything, or I’ll kick you back in.”

When he ended the sentence, the girl was already on her feet.

She followed the Talon agent through the corridors. Up and down went operatives with what she supposed was the special organization’s uniform, others stood still, guarding doors. Ester remained in silence, still wrapped with her blanket, looking from side to side. The great number of weapons she was seeing made her uncomfortable.

Without realizing it, she collided against Reaper’s black back.

“ _Perdó._ ”, she apologised automatically.

“Its: _perdón._ ”, he corrected, turning right. Was it her imagination or his intonation had wavered a tiny bit?

“I haven’t said that in Spanish.”, she replied half-heartedly, but not willing to accept the correction.

“Hm.”, he did, stopping again to type a code in a dispositive beside an armoured door.

Ester didn’t even try to look. Too hungry. Too nauseous.

The door opened with a decompression sound, letting way to a gush of wind that made the girl’s hair fly.

She didn’t see it, but Reaper smiled when she muffled an exclamation. He stepped aside to let her pass.

It looked like he had taken her through something akin to a service door. Behind her there was the austere building that served as a base, and in front there was a great forest of… deciduous trees?

And it didn’t smell like humidity. They were far away from the sea. It was a bit cold, but maybe it was because she had grown unaccustomed to the exterior climate. Or for lack of clothing. Two questions that until that moment had appeared useless to her starting bouncing around her head:

Where am I?

How much time have I been… sleeping?

She wasn’t going to ask them out loud at the moment, of course. Not with that company.

She took a couple steps towards the trees. The grass crunched under the slippers that they had had the politeness to give her.

Reaper followed her closely, ready to catch her if she tried to run.

He froze when the girl sat on the ground.

“Do you want to sit with me?”, she offered. “ _Podemos hablar en español, si quieres. Me es más fácil que el inglés._ ”

<We can speak in Spanish if you want. It’s easier than English to me.>

“Hm.”, he did, sitting slowly at a cautious distance.

Ester started pulling grass out of the ground, looking at him absent-mindedly every now and then.

“ _¿Siempre llevas la máscara_?”

<Do you always wear the mask?>

“ _¿Te molesta_?”, he growled.

<Does it bother you?>

“ _Solo pregunto.”_ , she answered, rising her head to stare at him intently. “¿ _La hiciste tu_ _?”_

<Just asking. Did you make it?>

He didn’t answer.

“ _Es original.”_ , she continued, drawing a small smile on her face. _“_ _Pareces entre una calavera y una lechuza.”_

<It’s original. You look like something between a skull and a barn owl.>

_“Y_ _tu pareces una bruja_ _.”_ , he replied. _“_ _Con esos pelos, la piel translúcida y ojos de loca.”_

<And you look like a witch. With that messy hair, translucid skin and crazy eyes.>

_“_ _La pareja_ _perfecta.”,_ she half laughed. “ _Gracias por traerme aquí fuera. Me siento un poco mejo_ _r.”_ , she added, raising her gaze to watch how the afternoon sun dissappeared behind the trees. “¿ _Cuánto rato me puedo quedar_ _?”_

<The perfect couple. Thanks for bringing me outside. I feel a bit better. How long can I stay?>

_“Puedes cenar aquí fuera, si prometes que vas a comer.”_

<You can have dinner here, if you promise you’re going to eat.>

_“Vale. Pero quiero que seas tú quien se quede conmigo. No me gustan los soldados con esos cascos.”_

<Okay. But I want it to be you who stays with me. I don’t like the soldiers with these helmets.>

_“Hecho.”_

<Deal.>

Ester answered him with a smile, tilting her head backwards to draw in fresh air

 “ _Mañana vas a conocer a los jefes_ _.”_ , Reaper said suddenly. Ester tensed, looking at him with wide eyes. _“_ _Te harán una oferta. Te aconsejo que la aceptes_ _.”_

<Tomorrow you’ll be meeting the bosses. They will make you an offer. I advise you to take it.>

Despite the news, Ester managed to hold the dinner in her stomach.

 

_Fluorescent grass grew under her feet at the same time that hundreds of fireflies took fly and became stars. The girl shuddered when she sensed something beside her, out of her vision field. She turned sharply to find an ethereal form, akin to a small cloud. Nine blue lights shined in what must have been its head._

_“Zenyatta!”, she greeted him with a smile._

_Ester shifted her attention to the long green dragon that gyrated from behind to cloud towards her._

_“Hello, Genji.”, she said, raising a hand to pet his snout._

_Then she saw her arm._

_It wasn’t made of flesh, but light. All of her was light. Like a star. A simple silhouette, without hair nor clothes nor pupils, only the shape of a body._

_Her thoughts shifted again when two blue dragons approached her from behind._

_“Han-zo!”, she sing-sang, happy to have so much company._

_She passed a hand through the blue scales of one of the dragons before turning back to the ethereal form._

_“My supposition was correct. You are within the Iris.”, he commented, satisfied._

_“I miss you.”, replied Ester, her sadness invading the space around them._

_“Do not despair, young one. We are doing all we can to fins you, but… we have found convenient to try to reach you this way. Tell me: do you know where you are? Have you seen or heard something that could help us find you?”_

_“No.”, she answered dryly. “I have only seen some trees. It was a bit cold. Nothing else.”_

_“I see… how are you feeling? Have they hurt you?”_

_The girl meditated if answering or not._

_“Not directly. I’m sick. But I’m feeling a bit better now.”_

_“Do not lose hope, youngling.”, the cloud that was Zenyatta put a hand on her shoulder._

_“Is Jaime with you?”, she asked suddenly._

_“He is.”, answered the omnic with his usual calm._

_“Could you take a red rose from the garden and give it to him?”_

_“I would like to, but… we are not at Gibraltar anymore. After the attack, we moved to another base.”_

_“Oh…”, breathed Ester, visibly disheartened._

_The dragons made a strange waving upon noticing her mood._

_“But I could look for a rose somewhere else and give it to him.”, he proposed with sweet voice._

_“Yes!”, she jumped suddenly. “Yes, please! Red, please.”_

_“Do you want me to pass him a message?”_

_“No. Only the rose.”_

_“And… can I ask why red?”_

_“Tradition.”, she said simply, but she decided to drop the mystery and elaborate: “_ Sant Jordi _is Catalonia’s patron. When he killed the dragon to rescue the princess, red roses grew from the dragon’s blood, and Sant Jordi gave one to the princess as a proof of his love.”_

_Her figure moved nervously when she realised what she had implied with those words in front of three persons… despite two of them being completely silent all the time._

_Zenyatta released a musical laugh._

_“I will deliver the rose.”, he nodded._

_“Thanks.”, answered Ester, mentally keeping tabs on the other Overwatch’s agents. “Jack. Is he okay?”_

_“He is recovering.”, he nodded slowly._

_The space exploded in the girl’s happiness and relief, making more fireflies fly higher and the dragons to do wide movements._

_“I am glad!”_

_“I am glad that you are glad.”, smiled Zenyatta. “Ester…”_

_“Yes?”_

_“Do you know why Talon wants you?”_

_“No.”, she replied, all of the positive energy dissipating. “I think they will tell me tomorrow.”_

_“Stay safe.”, he said. His voice was firmer than usual._

_Ester tilted her head in a silent question._

_“If they ask you for information about us… give it away. We can’t ask you to go through what they could do to you.”_

_The grass died suddenly when it noticed the girl’s fear. The dragons growled, unnerved._

_The cloud took her hands made of light between his._

_“Everything will be alright. We will find you. Do whatever you need to be safe until that happens.”_

_“Alright.”, she answered, insecure._

_“Would you like us to keep you company until you wake up?”, Zenyatta asked softly, without letting her go._

_“Yes. Please.”_

She awoke with her face humid, but she wasn’t sad.

They were looking for her.

They cared.

One of those soldiers she didn’t like went to fetch her. Ester wrapped herself in her blanket and followed him to a door even more robust than those she had seen.

From within the room tension emerged. Tension, and all kinds of bad vibes. The kind of bad vibes that gives an alley between abandoned factories or a dark tunnel. Furthermore, it stunk of cologne.

A different solider, who was already inside, escorted her to an empty chair at the head of the table. Ester slammed her head against the back of the chair noisily, flexing her knees to put her feet on the chair, and looked at the people sitting around.

Bourgeois. AAAAAAAAAAlllllllllllllllllllllllll bourgeois. Very expensive clothes, weird hair-styles. Did that omnic have hair? It was hard to tell. A big man, African or of African ascendance, pressed into a suit. A red-haired woman, probably older than she looked like. She couldn’t avoid a small gesture of general disdain. She looked at Reaper, who was standing at the far end of the room, waiting for something to happen.

“That’s the witch you talked about?”, asked the African, studying her.

“My name is Ester.”, she introduced herself unenthusiastically. “I’m cold. What do you want?”

“We have proof that you have a… certain talent.”, said the omnic, starting a recording.

The girl’s heart sped up when she recognized Athena’s voice, and her eyes opened wide when she heard her own. “We want you to use it for us.”

“Uh.”, she sounded, almost disgusted. “That’s not that easy… You want me to tell you how it works?”

“Does it come with a manual?”, mocked the woman.

“ _Diis it cim with i miniil?”_ , replied Ester.

The woman was not amused. The omnic was visibly holding back laughter.

“Explain yourself.”, interrupted Reaper.

Ester sighed

“Normally I have a dream, and it happens after two days. A day of tranquillity, and the next one it happens. I don’t control what I dream, nor when I dream it: there’s nights when I dream nothing, there’s mornings when I forget everything ten seconds after waking up. And let’s say stress doesn’t help me to have interesting dreams. And my actual situation is stressing, in case you haven’t noticed.”, she added.

“And what do you propose?”, snorted the woman.

“I want a room with windows. And a bathroom. And be able to go outside, even if it’s with escort.”

“Does the princess want a unicorn too?”, the omnic cooed.

“If you are offering it, yes.”, Ester smiled childly.

“And what if, instead, we do it like this: either you explain us what you dream, or we take away your food, bed, and toilet.”, threatened the miss.

“Have you heard me when I have talked about stressful situations? I don’t think I’m asking for the impossible, just some basic commodities! Not all toilets have to be bathed in gold, you know?”

The bourgeoise exchanged glances.

“I don’t believe a word she is saying.”, spitted the woman.

“It’s weird, but she isn’t asking for the moon.”, admitted the omnic.

“We could try.”, added the African.

The other people in the room didn’t speak up, they only nodded.

“If you haven’t told us anything profitable in two weeks, you will be going back to the cell.”, sentenced the African.

Ester shrugged.

“I’ll do what I can.”

 

The room was nice. A lot cosier than the cell. She deduced that the window faced the opposite side of the building where Reaper had taken her out, because now she could see the base was composed with different buildings. Guard paraded along the space that separated them, and there were a bunch half hidden on the roofs. Reaper kept coming to take her outside, sometimes calm, sometimes so moody than Ester ended up asking to return sooner than she wanted to.

A week passed without any useful dream.

Reaper went to fetch her one morning to find her staring at him with a strange and intense gaze.

“What?”, he blurted.

“You have a family. You go to see them for Christmas, but you don’t talk to them.”

He froze.

“How do you know that?”

“I dreamt it.”

The man approached her with two long steps.

“Don’t. Tell that. To anyone.”, he hissed.

“¿ _No te dejan verles?”_ , she asked with worry.

<They don’t let you see them?>

“ _No es asunto tuyo.”_ , he growled.

<It’s none of your business.”

Ester decided to use the card on her sleeve.

“¿ _Te llamas Reyes?”_

<Is your name Reyes?>

A slight tremor gave him away.

_“Lo soñé.”_ , said the girl, getting ahead of the question. “ _También vi el emblema de Overwatch esculpido en la tumba de la que saliste. ¿Era una metáfora? A veces cuesta de decir...”_

<I dreamt of it. I also saw Overwatch’s emblem engraved on the tomb you crawled out from. Was that a metaphor? Sometimes it’s hard to tell…>

_“¡Calla!”_ , he roared. “¡ _Maldita bruja loca!”_

<Shut up! Damn crazy witch!>

And yes, Ester really looked like a witch. Her curls were tangled and messy, and despite eating more than before, she was still pale and consumed.

“¿ _Por qué cambiaste de bando?”_

<Why did you switch sides?>

_“¡Tú no sabes nada!”_

<You know nothing!>

_“Por lo que me han contado, Overwatch se dedicaba a la protección del orden público después de la Omnic Crisis, mientras que Talon es una organización terrorista que cree que los conflictos fortalecen a la humanidad. Y digo yo: ¿de verdad hay gente que piensa que la humanidad necesita ayuda para meterse en problemas?”_

<For what I have been told, Overwatch was dedicated to the protection of civil order after the Omnic Crisis, while Talon is a terrorist organization that believes that conflicts make humanity stronger. And I say: are there really people who thinks that humanity needs help to get in trouble?>

_“Este tema muere aquí.”,_ he growled at millimetres from her face.

<This subject dies here.>

_“Vale. Voy a cantar, ¿sí?”_

<Okay. I’m going to sing, yeah?>

“Hmp.”

“ _Y los muertos aquí,_

_Lo pasamos muy bien_

_Entre flooooores_

_De colooooores...”_

<And the dead here,

Have a lot of fun

Among floooooowers

Of coloooooours…>

“Enough!!!!”, he yelled at her face.

A mad smile draw itself on Ester’s face.

“And that was the demonstration of my sonofabitching. How was it? You rather have me happy, don’t you?”

Reaper stepped back.

“Today you’re not going out.”

And he left, slamming the door shut.

“Okay, dad…”, mumbled the girl, stretching her arm to pick up a tablet from the table.

 

Nor Zenyatta, nor Genji, nor Hanzo, returned to her dreams.

In a way, that disappointed her, but she didn’t want to have ill thoughts. She didn’t know how long at taken them to find her… spiritually.

And she thought life was metaphysical before traveling in time…

A couple of nights she fell asleep with the idea of finding them herself.

Next morning she didn’t remember a thing from the night.

The two weeks limit would run out soon, and Ester didn’t dream anything further from Reaper.

“You had already shot Jack before, eh?”

“Aren’t you supposed to see the future?”, he grumbled. “Why don’t you stop talking about past things?”

“Dude, you are practically the only human contact I had have in weeks. Of course I dream of you!”

She blushed a but when she realised the possible interpretation of her last sentence. She started pulling up grass absently.

“I don’t control my dreams. And every time I forget more things… There has been times were I haven’t had premonitions in months… I even thought that I wouldn’t have any anymore. I had a lot and close up when I was with Overwatch… Maybe my brain is tired, or something like it.”

“Hn.”, he breathed. “You look healthier.”

Indeed, the room change had had a positive effect on Ester. The nausea had been reduced to only in the morning, so she had lunch and dinner without incident.

“I feel better.”, she nodded, repressing a shudder. The sun was setting and the fresh air of the evening was raising.

And then Reaper shed off his black jacket and threw it at her.

Ester stared at the piece of clothing as if it were a bomb and raised her surprised eyes to look at its owner.

“You’ll catch a cold.”, he said.

The girl sported an excited smile and put on the jacket, extending the tail behind her. She couldn’t resist it: she put on the hood too, which practically covered her eyes.

“This is heavy as fuck.”

“Hrn.”

Ester released a giggle and stood with a jump, stretching her hands out of the sleeves:

“Bang, bang! I am the Reaper! Bang bang!”, she played, spinning and releasing another giggle. “It would be too much to ask for the mask, right?”

“Right.”

She shrugged and continued pointing at the trees and brush with her fingers.

“ _..._ _¿Ibas a matarte para proteger a Morrison i McCree?_ _”_ , he asked after a while in silence.

<…Were you going to kill yourself to protect Morrison and McCree?>

Ester stopped.

_“Ése era el plan.”_

<That was the plan.>

_“¿Qué crees que habría pasado después de haberte disparado?”_

<What do you think that would have happened after you shot yourself?>

Oh, good question.

_“Uh, no sé. Con un poco de suerte la confusión le habría dado tiempo a McCree a hacer algo.”_

<Uh, I don’t know. With a bit of luck the confusión would have given time to McCree to do something.>

_“Ibas a matarte por ellos.”_

<You were going to kill yourself for them.>

_“No. Iba a matarme porqué llevaba tiempo intentándolo. Y si por el camino podía salvar a dos personas que habían sido buenas conmigo... Pues mira.”_

<No. I was going to kill myself because I had been trying for some time. And if along the way I could save two persons who had been kind to me… You see.>

_“Heh… No me extraña que te quedaras con los de Overwatch… ¿Dónde te encontraron?”_

<Heh… No wonder you stayed with Overwatch… Where did they find you?>

Oh, shit.

_“Uh... Cerca de Barcelona...”_

<Uh... Near Barcelona...”

_“Sombra no encontró nada sobre ti en la red. Eso es raro._ _”_

<Sombra didn’t find anything about you on the net. That’s weird.>

The voice he was using screamed “danger” in thirty-three languages, at the very least.

_“¿Quién es esa Sombra? No la he visto_ _.”_ , she tried to change the subject, sitting down so her legs wouldn’t tremble.

<Who is that Sombra? I haven’t seen her.>

_“¿De dónde sales_ _?”_ , insisted Reaper.

<Where do you come from?>

Ester pressed her lips together.

_“¿_ _A quién le importa_ _?”_ , she tried to impose.

<Who cares?>

_“A mí.”,_ he growled, getting up.

<Me.>

_“Ugh, ¡vale, vale! ¡Pero luego no me mires como si fuera una loca!”_ , she huffed. _“En mi familia son tecnófobos radicales, ¿vale? No vi ni nada conectado a internet hasta hace un año, y en aquel punto ya no me interesaba. Y sí: pasé mi infancia como una niña loca de las montañas. No te rías.”_

<Ugh, okay, okay! But later don’t look at me as if I were crazy! In my family they are radical technophobes, okay? I didn’t see anything connected to the internet until a year ago, and at that point I wasn’t interested anymore. And yes: I spent my childhood as a crazy child of the mountains. Don’t laugh.>

Reaper crossed his arms.

He wasn’t buying it.

_“_ _Vale, vale, la parte de tecnófobos ha sido muy cliché_ _.”_ , she sighed, bringing a hand to her face. She pulled it back suddenly to spit her next attempt. “¿ _Y si te dijera que todas las mujeres de mi familia pertenecen a un linaje de brujas de los Pirineos y por eso tengo premoniciones? ¿Y no se me permitía usar internet porque las mayores temían que en mi ignorancia, contara el secreto?”_

<Okay, okay, the technophobe part has been very cliché. What if I told you that all women in my family are from a linage of witches from the Pyrenees and that’s why I have premonitions? And I wasn’t allowed to use the internet for fear of the grown ups that in my ignorance, I would tell the secret?>

The man stared at her for a few seconds without saying a thing.

“ _¿En qué momento de mi vida esto se ha vuelto más plausible que lo anterior...?”_ , she heard him mumble.

<In what moment of my life has this become more plausible than the former...?>

Ester released a laugh and bounced around, considering herself saved.

_“¿Sabes? ¡No pareces una mala persona! ¡Apuesto a que te gusta el helado! ¿Me traerás helado algún día?_ _”_

<You know? You don’t look like a bad person! I bet you like ice cream! Will you bring me ice cream some day?>

_“No te hagas ilusiones...”_

<Don’t get your hopes up…>

 

“You haven’t told us anything useful.>, growled the red-haired woman.

“I haven’t dreamt anything useful.”, replied Ester, shrugging.

“Then you are of no use to us.”

“Would you rather me to tell you lies? Yeah okay I’m not big help, but I’m not fucking with you either.”

“You helped Overwatch.”, interrupted the omnic.

“What do you want me to say? They were kind, they let me come and go, and I cared about them.”

“Are you insinuating you have no intention of helping us, witch?”, echoed the voice of the African.

Ester’s mouth tilted.

“I insinuate that I don’t like being here. I don’t know anybody, I’m not happy. There are weapons and things that make me uneasy everywhere.”

“Oh. Do you want to stop suffering, little one?”

The fact that the miss had formulated the question was what put her more on edge.

“She just admitted she has no intention to help. I propose we put her through the same procedure as Amélie.”

“It could affect her abilities…”, intervened Reaper.

“She either has them for us, or she doesn’t have them at all!”, spitted the woman.

Ester folded on the chair, sending a look of distrust and anger to the room.

“I’m okay with it.”, said the omnic with the tone of someone who decides what will they have for dinner.

The anger. The anger that grew inside Ester didn’t have a name, but it did have a use: drown the fear. The anger turned to rage, and the rage to fury.

In a heartbeat the girl threw herself over the table and dug her fingers in the woman’s eyes.

Her scream drew a mad smile on her face.

She couldn’t enjoy it for long: someone grabbed her from behind and yanked her away from her victim. Ester found herself trapped between the colossal arms of the African man.

The girl screamed and kicked.

“ _Fills de puta!!! Que us bombin, malparits!!! Sacs de merda!!! Cabrons!!! Xarrupaescrots!!! Cap de cony!!! Mitjamerda!!! Txitxarel·lo!!!”,_ she shouted.

The man held her tighter, until she started to be short of breath.

He took her out of the room and threw her into her room, leaving her a warning look that died in the fire of Ester’s eyes.

She kicked everything she could. She searched desperately for corners, sharp things, anything that could avoid the fate that they just assigned her, but she didn’t find anything. Anything sharp had been filed so she couldn’t hurt herself badly.

At least she hoped to have left the bourgeoise bitch blind.

Night came, and nobody told her anything. They didn’t bring her dinner.

Ester laid down on the bed, curled over herself.

 

_A yellow bird took fly towards the trees._

The girl woke up.

Bird. Bird flying equals freedom!!!

Her eyes shined in excitement.

Yes yes yes yes yes!!! If Reaper went to take her outside, she could escape! She just had to go deep into the forest! She would end up finding a town or road, right?

She would leave. Of course she would leave!

But lunch was brought to her, and he didn’t appear.

Tired of waiting and with nerves and worry starting to claw at her mind, she went to the door and kicked it.

“Ei!”, she yelled. “Reaper isn’t coming?”

“No.”, answered the guard outside. “You are confined until new orders.”

Ester brought a hand to her mouth and kicked the door again before turning around and beating the mattress. When she noticed, she had been crying for quite some time. She wanted to scream, but, why? Nobody would listen to her. Nobody cared.

They would brainwash her. They would kill her person and use her body, just like with Widowmaker.

She didn’t want it.

The swirl of emotions and tantrums tired her until she fell asleep.

A sharp finger touching her cheek woke her up.

Ester shrunk, getting away from the contact.

“ _¡Buenos díaaaas!”_ , sing-sang a feminine voice.

<Good morniiiiiiiiing!>

The girl wielded the pillow to drive her way, trying to focus her vision.

Another girl, dressed in purple, started at her with an odious grin.

A girl she recognized.

“You!”, she exclaimed.

“Helloooooo!”, the Mexican greeted with her hand.

Rage erupted inside Ester once again, but she limited herself to press her fist and tooth.

“ _¿Tú eres Sombra?”_ , she growled.

<Are you Sombra?>

“ _¡Única e inimitable!”_ , her grin widened.

<One and only!>

“ _Si tu auténtico nombre resulta ser Luz, voy a llorar..._ ”, huffed the Catalan.

<If your real name is Luz, I’m going to cry...>

The mocking smile disappeared for three nanoseconds.

“ _¿Qué quieres_ _?”_ , she asked when she saw the Talon agent didn’t say a thing. “ _No te había visto el pelo en todo el tiempo que llevo aquí.”_

<What do you want? I hadn’t seen your hair in all the time I have been here.>

_“Solo han sido dos semanas.”_

<It has only been two weeks.>

So little time? Ester thoughts fired in a thousand directions: calculus of days, hours, dates, ways to spend the time, the need to escape, the progress that Overwatch’s people could have or not have done, the stupid smile on the face of the girl opposite her, roses… How long since she had talked to Zenyatta? Would he already found a red rose? Had he given it to Jamie? How would have he reacted?

“ _... eh,_ _¿me estás escuchando_ _?”_ , asked Sombra, annoyed.

“No.”, answered Ester, uninterested.

A hand flied to the wall, right beside her head, startling her.

_“_ _Te he preguntado de dónde coño sales_ _.”_ , she whispered threatingly . _“Van a_ _lavarte el cerebro, así que ésta es mi última oportunidad para descubrirlo.”_

<I have asked you were the fuck you come from. They are going to brainwash you, so this is my last chance to find out.>

Ester pressed her lips, trying to remember what had she told to Reaper.

“ _Uh_ _... ¿Familia de brujas de los Pirineos...?”_

<Uh… Witch family of the Pyrenees?>

“ _¡No me vengas con pendejadas_ _!_ ”, she yelled.

But the girl couldn’t repress her laugh.

“ _¿¡Qué!?”_ , she jumped, annoyed.

“ _’¡Pendejadas!’”_ , laughed Ester.

And the laughing grew and grew, filling the room

Sombra rolled her eyes. Oh, yeah. Discord among Spanish-speaking.

_“Oh, si, muy divertido, ‘joder’, ‘hostia puta’_ _.”_

Ester laughed even more.

_“’¡La reconcha de tu madre!’”_ , she yelled between laughs, tears falling from her eyes.

In a certain moment Sombra had to bring a hand to her mouth in an attempt to mantain seriousness, remembering herself that she was in an interrogation. She waited for a while in silenci, waiting for the girl to calm down.

“ _Venga, sé buena y dime lo que quiero saber. No tienes nada que perder, ¿verdad?_ _”_

Ester sat down, thinking about the proposition. Telling the truth still didn’t seem like an attractive idea.

“ _Eh, no es mi problema si no te crees mi historia.”_ , she replied, shrugging.

<Eh, it’s not my problema if you don’t believe my story.>

The arm returned to its position beside her head.

“ _Mira, niña, está claro que no sabes quién soy. Soy Sombra: la mejor hacker del mundo. Nadie puede ocultar nada de mí. De ser tu historia cierta, me habría enterado antes que tu propia madre. ¿Entiendes_ _?”_

<Listen, kid, it’s clear that you do not know who I am. I’m Sombra: the best hacker in the world. Nobody can hide anything from me. If your story were true, I would have known before your mother did. Do you understand?”

_“_ _Ah, ¿la pequeña hacker va a llorar porque no puede soportar no saber un secreto? Buah, buah._ _”_ , she mocked.

<Ah, little hacker is going to cry because she can’t stand not knowing a secret? Buah, buah.>

And then the hand grabbed at her neck.

_“Dime cómo lo has hecho para eliminar tu rastro de la red global, o muere con el secreto. A mí me da igual.”_

<Tell me how you did it to erase your trace from the global red, or die with the secret. It’s the same for me.>

_“A mí... también_ _...”_ , answered Ester, fighting to breath but managing to draw an indifferent smile.

<Me… too…>

Sombra’s eyes glided to the bandage that the girl still sported on a side of her head, where her hair had been cut to cover the wound accordingly.

She pulled her hand away with a puff.

“ _Vale, que tal esto: tú me cuentas lo que te pido, y a cambio yo consigo que no te laven el cerebro... Tú te inventas un sueño y yo hago como que pasa. ¿Qué dices? Sales ganando.”_

<Okay, how about this: you tell me what I’m asking you for, and in exchange I keep them from brainwashing you… You made up a dream and I make as if it had happened. What do you say? You come out ahead.>

It was a really good offer, considering her circumstances. Overwatch would come for her. She had to keep herself alive.

_“_ _No creo que vayas a creerme_ _...”_

<I don’t think you’re going to believe me...>

_“Inténtalo_ _.”_ , she dared her with a smile, sitting down at the edge of the bed.

A second of silence.

Two seconds.

Three. Four.

Ester looked around, checking the cameras.

A sigh.

_“No has encontrado nada sobre mí en las redes porque vengo del pasado.”_ , she spitted.

<You haven’t found anything about me on the web because I’m from the past.>

“Hah!!!”, laughed the girl, leaning forward. “¡ _Muy bueno, pero lo de las brujas era más plausible!”_

<Good one, but the witches one was more plausible!>

_“No te miento.”_ , insisted Ester, serious.

<I’m not lying yo you.>

_“¡Claro que no! ¡Y yo soy un omnic, ¿no ves?!”_

<Of course not! And I’m an omnic, don’t you see?!>

_“¿Sabes quién es Lena?”_

<Do you know who Lena is?>

_“¿Tracer?”_

<Tracer?>

_“Sí. Ella me arrastró sin querer con su acelerador cronal.”_

<Yes. She dragged me by accident with her chronal accelerator.>

For a few moments it seemed like the hacker was considering that possibility.

_“Vale, hipotéticamente: ¿de que tiempo vienes_ _?”_ , she asked, lífting an arm and unfolding a small screen on her forearm.

<Okay, hypothetically: what time do you come from?>

_“Principios del 2000.”_

<Beginnings of the 2000.>

_“¿Y tu nombre completo es...?”_

<And your full name is?>

Ester swallowed. It had been months since she hadn’t said more than her name.

“Ester Viladrau Gelabert.”, she answered.

Sombra rose an eyebrow, intrigued.

 “ _¿Dos apellidos?”_

<Two surenames?>

_“Sí. Donde yo vivo, todo el mundo tiene dos: el primero suele ser el primer apellido del padre; i el segundo, el primer apellido de la madre.”_

<Yes. Where I live, everybody has two: the first is usually the father’s first surname; and the second, the mother’s first surname.>

_“Deletréamelos.”_

<Spell them to me.>

And so she did. Sombra begun her search. A mischievous smile drew itself on Ester’s face.

 “ _Sombra aquí,_

_Sombra allá,_

_Maquíllate, maquíllate...”_ , she singed.

<Shadow here,

Shadow there,

Make-up, make-up...>

“Un espejo

De cistal,

Y mírate, y mírate...”

<A mirror

Of glass

And look at you, and look at you...”

Sombra huffed and concentrated on the screen again.

Two seconds latter her eyes went wide as planets and her frenetic eyes jumped between Ester and the result that the screen displayed.

“ _¿Qué? ¿Me has encontrado?”_ , she asked stretching her hand to Touch the screen, turn it around or do whatever had to be done to see what it showed.

<What? Have you found me?>

Sombra’s free hand grabbed her wirst firmly.

_“¿Eres Ester?”_ , she asked with grave voice.

_“Sí...”_ , she replied, a bit confused.

“¿ _Nacida el 23 de agosto de 1999?”_

<Born the 23 of August of 1999?”

_“Sí.”_ , she replied again. Sombra looked at the screen again. A silence grew between them. _“¿Qué pasa?”_

<Yes. What happens?>

The Talon agent let go of he rand stood suddenly.

_“Voy a hacer algo. Volveré enseguida: no te vayas con nadie, no le digas a nadie lo que me has dicho... Y ve al baño.”_

<I’m going to do something. I’ll be right back: don’t go anywhere with nobody, don’t tell anyone what you just said to me... And go to the toilet.>

_“¿Qué?”,_ she asked, very confused.

<What?>

Sombra left without adding anything else.

A beat of hope shook the girl as nervousness gripped around her back, fearing that someone would come for her before the Mexican did.

She went to the toilet, as she had told her; she stripped the blanket from the bed and wrapped herself in a corner.

Outside, the night was falling.

Sombra came in suddenly and searched for her with her eyes.

“ _Aquí._ ”, said Ester.

<Here.>

The hacker neared her with two long strides, grabbed her from an arm and pulled her towards her.

The girl screamed when she noticed how she injected something between the bones in her left elbow. Without giving her time to recover, Sombra made her stood and dragged her outside the room.

“¡ _¿Qué me has hecho?!”_ , she yelled.

<What have you done to me?!>

_“¡Shhhhh!”, she hushed her, showing her tooth._ _“¡Estate callada_ _!”_

<Shhhhhh! Be silent!>

Ester sealed her lips, trying not to think of the pain on her elbow.

What had she done? Was it a tracker? If it was, she couldn’t go back to Overwatch. Did they want to use her as bait?

Sombra took her out of a door similar to the one Reaper had taken her before. In front of her, the woods seemed immense, looking threatening in the gloom. The woman took her by her shoulders.

 “ _Escúchame. Te estoy mandando a la segunda ciudad más próxima a la base. Si te mando a la primera, te encontraran enseguida. Caminando en esa dirección, tardarás entre dos y tres días en llegar. Eso que tienes en el brazo_ _...”,_ she proceeded raising her elbow: “ _... es una memoria. Podrás consultar los datos en cualquier terminal, y ningún programa lo detectará. Es un secreto, ¿me oyes? Un SECRETO, y no debes enseñárselo ni contárselo a NADIE, ni siquiera a los de Overwatch. ¿Entiendes?”_

<Listen to me. I am sending you to the second city nearest to the base. If I send you to the closest, they’ll find you in no time. Walking in that direction, it will be between two and three days to arrive. That thing you got in your arm… is a pen drive. You will be able to look up the archives in any terminal, and no program will be able to detect it. It’s a secret, do you hear me? A SECRET, and you musn’t show it to ANYONE, not even the people of Overwatch. Do you understand?>

Ester nodded.

 “ _¿Por qué me ayudas?”_ , she asked her with shaky voice with deep gratitude.

<Why are you helping me?>

“ _No es que tenga otro remedio...”_ , she answered, frowning. “ _Vete. Consigue que te manden a casa._ _”_

<It’s not as if I have another option... Go. Make sure they send you home.>

The girl’s heart skipped a beat.

_“Ahora Overwatch es mi casa.”_ , she replied, defying her with her gaze.

“Hmpf.”, huffed Sombra. _“Entonces, harás todo lo que puedas para ayudarles, ¿verdad? Vete. Mira los datos con calma. Y no se lo digas a nadie.”_

<Hmpf. Then, you will do everything in your power to help them, right? Go. Look over the data calmly. And don’t tell anyone.>

Ester nodded again and turned around to leave.

“ _Ah, espera. Tus zapatillas. Dámelas.”_

<Ah, wait. Your slippers. Give them to me.>

_“¿Por qué?_ _”_ , she asked, despite already getting them off.

<Why?>

_“Las usaré para despistar a los buscadores. Ahora vete.”_

<I will use them to distract the searchers. Now go.>

_“Gracias.”_ , whispered Ester before start running.

<Thanks.>

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was hell to translate.
> 
> The songs Ester sings in this chapter are from a group called Mecano.
> 
> The not-translated stuff are basically insults and swearwords, either in Catalan in the Talon meeting room or in Spanish when talking to Sombra. Didn't feel like translating them but if you are curious you may ask.
> 
> Hope you have enjoyed


	17. Run

Ester had thought on running for longer, but when the last rays of sun disappeared, she started tripping with everything that littered the underbrush, and it wasn’t nice. Almost blindly, she searched for a tree with low branches to climb onto. She climbed slowly, knowing how fucked she would be if she were to fall and brake something. She climbed as high as common sense allowed her and folded on herself.

She was out. She had escaped.

Now she only had to avoid being busted. Walk in the same direction, get to civilization.

And then she would find a way to contact Overwatch.

She was cold.

The clothes that they had given her were simple and thin. Reaper always brought her an extra jacket when he took her out. The bare foot didn’t help. She could barely feel her toes.

But that wasn’t the moment for desperation, so the girl distracted herself by touching the point where Sombra had injected the pen drive. She still had her doubts about if that thing had a tracer or not. But if she didn’t go back to Overwatch, where would she go? She didn’t know of anyone else who could help her. And what sense had to put a tracer on her and send her to the second closest city and not the first? If they wanted to set a trap, the sooner the better, isn’t it?

She was confused. She sighed and closed her eyes, leaning her forehead against her knees.

She wanted to try and sleep.

That night, flashlights and barking awoke her a couple times.

 

She woke up with the fist rays of sun. Her fingers and toes curled up suddenly, as if they were checking by themselves that they still existed. Ester cleared her throat and looked below her, making sure that there was no-one. She waited a couple minutes and started lowering herself to the ground slowly.

She touched ground and nobody jumped on her.

She peeked to the arrow she had built the previous night with branches and rocks and destroyed it before being in her way.

She made short steps, trying not to rush. She didn’t want to get tired. Didn’t want to stop to rest.

She started being thirsty and hungry sooner than she expected. She hadn’t had dinner the other night, right. She studied the vegetation around her. She wondered if there would be blackberries or something akin. Nothing that looked like belladonna. Her hopes of finding wild mushrooms were low, but she knew a lot of them are not edible unless cooked. She could hear birds above her. They must have something to eat.

She decided that, if the situation called for it, she would eat bugs. She spent a great part of the day getting mentally ready for the idea.

 _It’s just meat_ , she told herself. _Bugs have more protein and less lipids. I can kill ‘em before eating ‘em. The texture won’t be that different from raw fish or shellfish. If I’m hungry, I’m hungry and that’s it. The things inside_ botifarres _and sausages are even worse. A childhood friend of mine ate ants and he was still alive when I met him. It would be worse to try and eat mice. I don’t have the guts to kill a mouse._

She considered the food issue solved, but she was worried about water. She couldn’t find a substitute for that. The tree’s leaves were a shiny green: did that meant there was water close? She payed more attention to the type of vegetation. She didn’t know the names, but she could identify the usual flora from water bodies’ vicinity.

When the thirst started bothering her, she took a juicy-looking leaf and chewed it to get the liquid. Her mouth ended up viscous, but at least she entertained herself for a while.

The walk would have been marvellous if not for her bare foot. She couldn’t prevent being stabbed by rocks and branches, but at a point she decided that she didn’t care, as long as she could keep walking.

As always, it was sunset when desperation and insecurity assaulted her:

What if she had wandered without realising it? What if the was lost? What if Sombra had lied to her and the only thing she wanted was for her to starve to death? What if she didn’t find the city? What if she didn’t get to see Overwatch’s people again? What if she didn’t get to see Jaimie?

She forced herself to keep moving, drying her tears and thinking for a way to get rid of the snot. A few leaves ended their lives as hankies.

The air was cooling down. Ester constructed the arrow for tomorrow and climbed a tree.

 

Today it was her birthday.

Or she believed though.

On her calculations. Which she didn’t know if they were reliable, considering that she hadn’t done maths in three months and that she hadn’t kept count of days when staying at Talon’s base.

She thought about it to distract herself from hunger, and decided that she was already nineteen years old.

She hadn’t expected to achieve them.

The day grew long. How long had she been walking? She must be close to the city. That if she hadn’t wandered off without realising it…

She was hungry. Her stomach pulled at her. She was tired. She hurt: her foot, her legs, her back, her head. She didn’t have meds.

All her body wanted was to lay down on the ground and cry.

But her mind wouldn’t let her.

Her mind thought about Zenyatta. Lena. McCree. Ana. Hana. Lúcio. Fareeha. Jack. Genji. Mei. Zarya. Torbjörn. Reinhardt. Angela. Hanzo. Satya. Winston… Even Roadhog. Jaimie.

 _I want to see them_. That thought moved her legs with more energy than her own blood.

A small depression opened before her. Despite the carefulness she put on her steps to not fall down, a knee failed her. Luckily, she didn’t fall on anything sharp, but she laid still. Very still.

She had screamed.

And she had heard a sound.

A mechanical sound. A moving machine. Or at least that was what she linked it to. Maybe it was an omnic? Zenyatta didn’t make those sounds when moving. It might be good or bad? Dangerous? What was an omnic doing there? They were in the middle of no-where. Or maybe she had reached civilization? Without daring getting up, Ester rose her eyes.

A yellow bird stared back from a low branch, and tweeted.

The bush right in front of her was pushed aside abruptly by a great robot of squared forms.

Ester released a shriek and jumped backwards, trying to get away on all fours.

The robot stood frozen for a second, and immediately after stepped backwards in a rush.

The bird took flight and followed it.

It was running away.

“Wait!”, yelled Ester when she realised so.

She stood as she could and started running after the robot. Was it an omnic? Was there a difference between robot and omnic? Would it be offensive if she mistook the term? She should have asked Zenyatta…

“Don’t go! I’m lost! I’m hungry, I’m tired and I don’t know where I’m going!”, she yelled, quickly running out of breath. The robot wasn’t especially fast, but she was in no condition to race. She found herself unable to keep running. “Help me, please!”, she cried, falling to her knees.

It looked at her over its shoulder and stopped. For a few seconds they looked at each other, with Ester’s rapid breathing the only sound around. The omnic made a succession of whistles, in which the girl recognized emotions.

“I won’t hurt you.”, she reassured it with sad eyes. “I have been in the forest for two days. I’m lost, I’m hungry… I only want to go home…”, she allowed herself to cry.

The omnic approached her slowly after doing a combination of descending, sad boops and beeps. Ester dried her tears with an arm and looked at the being currently offering her a hand.

Because were there should be another hand there was what seemed to be a weapon’s cannon. The robot noticed the girl’s gaze and pointed the cannon upwards, making a calming whistle.

Yes, in those moments she could let it slip.

“My name is Ester.”, she introduced herself, looking what seemed to be the omnic’s only eye. “Do you have a name?”

The sounds couldn’t help her with that.

“Um…”, she hummed, getting a better look at it. She saw it had a letter and numbers painted on one side.

E54.

“Is it okay if I call you E?”

The omnic made a beep of approval before moving on.

“Do you know where is the closest town?”, she asked, worried.

An affirmative boop. The yellow bird landed on its shoulder.

“Do you know if it will be long?”, she asked again. This time the exhaustion in her voice was evident.

E halted and looked at her. Ester detected worry in a whistle.

“I am very tired.”, she explained, still breathing through her mouth.

The omnic put its arm in a ninety-degree angle and tilted its head, pointing at it.

“Can I… Can I get on?”, she wanted to be sure.

Another affirmative boop.

“Thank you.”, she said whole-heartedly, sitting on the offered arm.

E continued its way.

Soon enough, Ester fell asleep against it.

 

Some whistles and boops woke her up.

E was staring at her and moving its head in what might be excitement. It rose the arm-gun, pointing at the horizon.

The sky was darkening yet again, but this time, near the ground, lights could be seen.

Houses.

“A town!”, yelled Ester with an infinite happiness that swallowed the hunger, thirst and pain.

E lowered her on the floor and booped, now surely, with excitement and cheerfulness.

“Thank you very much!”, she said, bouncing a bit.

She couldn’t believe it! She had made it! She would go back to Overwatch!

She started walking towards the town, but she halted when no steps followed.

E looked at her, immobile.

“Aren’t you coming?”

Negation whistle.

“Why? Don’t you like people?”, the girl asked, tilting her head.

Some nervous boops invented her to change perspective.

“People doesn’t like you?”, she reformulated with worry.

A sad beep answered her.

“Oh…”, she voiced. “That’s very ugly. You are a good person: you have helped me. Maybe you haven’t met the right people yet.”, she paused to turn around and look at the town. “I’m going to call some friends of mine to come pick me up. They are from a group called Overwatch. They are really good people, I think you would get along. Especially with Zenyatta! He is an omnic. He is a really good person too.”

A heavily charged with worry boop made her press her lips.

“I won’t make you do anything, of course… But you have helped me, and so I would like to help you.”

A succession of beeps and boops full of doubts and confusion and what seemed to be an accelerated explanation forced the girl to cover her ears.

A pain flared like fire behind her eyes, but she decided to ignore it, like the rest.

“Don’t be afraid.”, she said, raising her eyes to look at E’s eye. “It’s okay. If you don’t want to, I won’t tell anybody I have seen you.”

A relieved whistle.

Ester sported a shy smile. She neared him (or her…?) with hesitant steps.

“Thank you very much, E.”, she said full-heartedly, improvising a hug. “You have saved my life.”

A few high-pitched beeps encouraged to leave with a good memory.

She waved goodbye and the omnic returned the gesture happily, and she turned to face civilization.

Her heartbeat rose from excitement. The girl brought her hand to her chest and tried to calm herself: she barely had energy left and she couldn’t afford to burn it feeling joy, were she to fall unconscious in the middle of town and be found by Talon.

The ground under her feet changed: goodbye to leaves, rocks and bugs; hello pavemented streets, cigarettes butts and bird shit. Getting on the sidewalk with a huff, Ester realised her knees were starting to fail. She looked up, towards the light of the lamps. She wondered if she should avoid it. She would hide better in the darkness, but maybe it was dangerous for her… She couldn’t see anyone on the streets… It didn’t present as weird, considering the chilly air. But she would need help de contact Overwatch’s people. A phone, or something… There wouldn’t be phone boxes anymore, would they? There were barely any left back at her time. It was up to faith that someone would help her.

She kept walking, searching for the town’s center. She hoped that, wherever she might be, people had the habit of getting together at plazas until late,

She moved slowly, looking from side to side four times every time she had to cross a street. If they found her now, it would all have been for nothing.

She was hungry. She was thirsty. She was cold.

She considered yelling for help out loud a couple times, but she didn’t dare to. She couldn’t gather the will to knock at a door either. What if they remembered her face and told Talon she had been there?

She continued wandering the unknown streets for what seemed like an eternity until she reached a wider street. A few blue screens glowed against a wall. Ester approached them, breathing through her mouth from exhaustion.

A few letters danced in front of her face and, judging by some sign punctuations, it was a Germanic or Northern tongue.0

Well, that explained the chill.

The girl released a tired sigh. She couldn’t understand what the screen was displaying. Was it asking for money? Was it useful for something or was it just an advertisement?

She rose her left arm to cover her face and block tears.

And then the pain called her attention.

She took her hand away and looked at her elbow with clenched teeth. That stupid dispositive was still bothering her…

Oh.

The dispositive.

The pen drive.

That worked with any terminal.

And is undetectable.

A spark of hope exploded in Ester’s eyes, but she forced herself to put it off. She rose her elbow near the screen.

A short-circuit shook the system. The girl stepped back, fearing having broke it, but then the screen returned to life in colour purple. The original letters flickered until they were translated to Spanish, and a menu of a darker shade appeared only for her.

Gathering all her strength to concentrate, Ester read the options:

_Descargar archivos_

_Instalar archivos_

_Consultar archivos_

_Buscador_

_Troyano_

_EMP_

_Matriz del terminal_

_Luces fuera_

None of those options seemed of much utility for her. She was no expert in computers.

For the Mother of God, they hated her!

She outstretched a finger, deciding it was worth the try, when an archive opened on its own, articulating a skull’s jaw:

“¡ _Holaaaa!_ ”, greeted Sombra’s mocking voice. “ _Enhorabuena, si estás oyendo esto, significa que has llegado hasta un terminal sin que te pillen!”_ , she congratulated her. “ _El siguiente paso sería contactar con tus amiguitos de Overwatch... ¿Tienes su número?”_

<Helloooo! Congratulations, if you are hearing this, it means you have made it to a terminal without being spotted! Next step would be getting in touch with your little friends at Overwatch… Do you have their number?>

Ester realised, horrified, that no: she didn’t have it. The only way she had had to talk to them at a distance was the comm., and then she hadn’t had to use a number. How was it that she hadn’t thought of it sooner? How was she planning on finding them, now? Zenyatta had told her they had left the base, so going back to Gibraltar would be useless. She didn’t even know where she was. Would she have to live on the streets, hoping for them to find her again in her dreams and tell her where they were?

“ _Eso pensaba_ _.”_ , the recording mocked with a giggle. “ _No te preocupes: todo controlado. Espero que esto te sirva para tener un poco más de confianza en mí... Recuerda: nada de contar qué tienes en el codo. Es solo para ti.”_

<That’s what I thought. Don’t worry: everything is under control. I hope this serves for you to have more trust in me… Remember: none of telling what’s in your elbow. It’s only for you.>

The archive close and erased itself.

A new tab opened.

The sound of a phone marking echoed in Ester’s ears, bringing tears of joy and gratitude in her eyes.

“Your call is being filtered through the program: Athena. Please, stand by.”, announced a voice.

Ester brought a hand to her mouth, muffling a hiccup.

“Who is this?”, asked a voice, tired and distrustful.

Ester swallowed a lump.

“Winston…?”

A few seconds of silence.

“Ester…?”

“Yes.”, she answered quickly. “It’s me. It’s me.”

“Ester! Where are you?! Are you okay?!”, the gorilla got up from his chair to take two quick steps toward the corridor before shouting: “Guys!!! It’s Ester!!! Ester is on the phone!!!”

An exhalation of pure happiness escaped between the girl’s smile. She was so, so happy to hear that voice…

“I don’t know where I am.”, she answered after swallowing yet again. “I’m thirsty… I’m hungry… I’m cold… My back hurts… Please, come to get me…”

“It’s okay. It’s okay, we are here, we are all listening. I’m tracking your call and we are reading a team to come pick you up. Do you know if you are being chased?”, continued the scientist.

“I don’t know… I got away two or three days ago… I have been walking through the forest… I haven’t seen anything suspicious, but… I don’t know… I’m very tired…”

“It’s alright. I have your location; do you hear me? I know where you are. Look for a close place to hide. We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

“I’m… I’m scared of hanging up…”, she cried.

“I know.”, said Winston after a second of silence. “But you are not alone. We know where you are. We are coming to get you. I assure you: when we get there, you’ll know. It will be only be a while more. Tomorrow at this hour, you will be with us, that’s for sure. Do you hear me? But you have to go hide. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”, she replied unwillingly.

“We will see each other in a few hours.”

“Okay.”

It was Ester who forced herself to end the call. She didn’t want Winston to feel bad for having to hung up on her.

The girl entered a discreet alley, determined to put at least a corner of distance between her and the place where she had made the call.

After checking that there was no-one in the alley and that it didn’t seem like a place with a lot of transit, the Catalan took shelter between two containers and sat on the ground. She didn’t even have enough energy to look for food among the left-overs.

A while later she was capable of hearing cars floating from three streets away. Her body tensed: images of Talon’s masked men and women flashing in her mind. She closed her eyes and calmed down thinking about Overwatch. Winston’s voice. They were coming for her.

Everything would be alright.

She distracted herself with as many thoughts as she could. Memories from warm summers, the salty sea-water, the great waves that rose when there was a storm, the colour difference in the _Costa Brava_ … A few songs resonated deep within her mind. At first she sang them in silence, then she treated herself with singing them lowly. Happy lyrics, lyrics of carrying on. Of leaping, going to search for your treasure. If the beauty of a land she knew. A song about a couple that wouldn’t take more advice.

She rose her eyes and se the moon, and a new set of songs drew a smile on her face. The sun, chasing the moon, knowing that their love will never end. A boy, crazy for the moon, that had to make due with drinking its light.

Her throat was dry and her voice raspy, but she sang as much as she could. She was off key, of course.

But luckily there was no-one around to hear her or understand her.

Leaning against a container, she dozed off.

 

She opened her eyes abruptly to find a hand that threatened to touch her.

Ester released a shout and jumped backwards with a movement only impossible for her poor condition: the kind of manoeuvre that can only be done from pure instinct. In a quart of a second she recognized Talon’s equipment, and half a second later she was already running down the alley.

The scream had been heard all around the village and beyond.

The girl just ran. Without looking back, without thinking where to go: just run away. Run and run and run and run from that moment on her life was about running and if she stopped she would die.

How long had it been? Would it take much longer for Overwatch to arrive? Would Talon shot at her? What did she had to do? Look for another place to hide? How many agents there might be in town?

She was getting tired fast. Too fast.

She turned around as many corners as she could. She had to brake visual contact. Hide. Be lucky.

Her heart and lungs didn’t seem happy with their working conditions. She could barely control her breathing. It was oral, loud and too fast. It would be impossible to go unnoticed that way.

It didn’t take long for Talon’s agents to gain ground on her. Ester run more desperately, but the shouts of her chasers made her doubt. She was tired. She thought again of the people of Overwatch, and her legs agreed to take a few more steps. She would turn the next corner, and hide where she could…

She heard the sound of heavy, metallic steps. Before her, E whistled, encouraging.

Without missing a beat, Ester turned.

She heard the noise of a machine gun round, and only believed that it came from the omnic because she saw it from the corner of her eye. Frightened, she kept running.

Now, at the very least, nobody was chasing her.

A discreet alley appeared in her sights, perfect to hide in.

She was leaping into the darkness when a figure emerged from it and took hold of her shoulders.

Ester shrieked.

No! No, no, NO! She couldn’t manage to run away from the agents just to fall in Reaper’s hands! Weakly, the girl tried to back down, but the hands held her firmly.

“Ester!”, called the figure, now illuminated with green tonalities.

“Genji…”, she reacted.

She left herself fall in the cyborg’s arms, who rushed to lift her from the ground and turn around, breaking into a run.

The girl’s body relaxed suddenly, almost in an antinatural way. She couldn’t help it: that was it. She had made it.

Genji run towards the transport with Ester in his arms, worried about how light she felt. He tried not to notice the pallid skin, the bags under the eyes and the tangled hair, the foot full of blisters and cuts, the sound of vertebrae getting in place in her back with every bounce and how the girl’s eyes closed slowly.

“Ester! Don’t fall asleep! You hear me?”, he said, shaking her a little.

Ester tried to open her mouth to reply, but she found herself unable to translate her thoughts. She was too tired, so she nodded and lifted her head a bit so Genji could see better that she had her eyes open.

It was hard. Now that she felt safe…

Suddenly a roof appeared above her. Only when she saw Angela’s face leaning over her she realised she wasn’t in Genji’s arms anymore. The doctor said something, but Ester couldn’t make up a coherent sentence. She grumbled weakly in Catalan and closed her eyes, trying to protect herself from the harsh lights.

All her body tensed when she sensed a sudden move.

“Easy.”, she heard Angela say, moving around her. “We are taking off. It’s alright. You can sleep now, if you want.”

She didn’t need to say it twice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is fluff


	18. Home and Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *crawls out of Star Wars: The Clone Wars hell*  
> *crawls out of college hell*
> 
> I STILL LIVE
> 
> Anyways. There is a oneshot of Ester seeing Genji's face in the comments of the previous chapter, if somebody is interested.
> 
> Enjoy this long chapter.

Ester was aware of being laid on something soft.

She didn’t feel like opening her eyes.

She remained still for a long time, enjoying the warmth of the blanket and the comfortable pillow, until the noises around her started bothering her.

The girl released a sigh and opened her eyes slowly.

Room mostly white, potent lights, curtains and weird apparatus that were probably of medic use. She wasn’t able to see much more.

“Hello…?”, she called shyly. “Angela…?”

It was Lúcio who appeared in her vision field.

Ester smiled automatically, happy to see him.

“Ei!”, he greeted.

“Ei…”, she replied, half grinning.

The Brazilian approached her and hugged her carefully. Ester had to made a bit of an effort to rise her arms and return the gesture. When he stepped back, the girl looked at her extremities: an IV in her right arm; sensors at her left hand.

“Careful with the tubes.”, Lúcio said softly. “Do they bother you? Is there something that hurts?”

Ester swallowed with a bit of difficulty.

“No.”, she answered. “I’m fine. Tired.”

“It’s normal. You haven’t slept not even a day. You should rest more. I’m sorry, but for the moment I can’t give you…”

“… food or water.”, she completed. “I know. I remember from the surgery…”

Absentmindedly, the girl started rubbing her feet against each other. She frowned when she noticed a lot of irregularities.

“What’s on my feet?”

“Bandages and band-aids, basically. You had some cuts and jabs, and with all the dirt there was a risk of infection, but nothing serious.”

Ester rose a hand slowly and brought it to her head. She pulled back abruptly when se didn’t find the bandage, but the soft tact of new hair growing anew.

“Ah, your head wound it’s almost healed, so we thought convenient to let it be… Your dressing was already old. Do you need anything? I should let you sleep, but if something buggers you, let me know.”

“I want to see the others.”, answered Ester, letting her arm rest against the matrass.

Lúcio smiled tenderly.

“And they want to see you. We had to block the door so they would let you rest easy.”, he laughed. “Sleep, and when you wake up again we will let visits in.”

“Okay.”, she sighed, relaxing against the pillow.

 

_The purple glow that her left elbow emitted called her attention. She rose her arm to have it at eye’s height, and stared at it._

_The longer she looked at it, the sadder she felt. Without noticing, her breathing picked up, and she recognized the first signs of an anxiety attack. She diverted her gaze and covered her elbow with a hand, but the light filtered through her fingers, making the pressure on her chest escalate._

_That thing emitted sorrow._

_Ester outstretched her left arm to keep it as far as possible from her body._

_It was then when she saw Lena, right in front of her arm: her face twisted in pain and trying to get away from the purple light. The girl turned around the get it away from the British, but then she found herself face to face with Hanzo, who also had a pained expression and tried to get away. Again, Ester turned in a different direction._

_But she bumped onto McCree. And Winston, and Angela, and Jack, and Jaimie, and Satya, and Mei, and Genji, and Zarya, and Fareeha, and Ana, and Roadhog, and Zenyatta, and Lúcio, and Reinhardt, and Torbjörn, and Hana, and… E? Widowmaker? Reaper…? A little girl… was she Effi? And the African man and the woman from the Talon meetings._

Doomfist and Moira _, provided a fleeting thought._

_The purple light hurt everyone, and there was nowhere to run. Everywhere were she went, there was someone who suffered._

_Ester let herself fall to the ground and curled over her left arm, protecting everyone from the light._

She didn’t open her eyes when she woke up.

_Yeah, subconscious, I get the message…_ , she mumbled internally.

The sigh she released called the attention of somebody within the room.

“Ester?”, Angela called softly.

“Hello.”, she greeted, making a first attempt at prying her eyelids apart. “Can I drink water?”, she asked with raspy voice.

“Yes. I’ll bring some right now.”

The girl wasn’t in any condition to complain for having to drink with a straw.

“Slowly.”, half scolded her the doctor.

She didn’t pay her much mind, but the back of her mind found adequate to remember her the vomits that strong medication produced. She released the straw, uncomfortable with the prevision of what would happen sooner or later.

“How are you feeling?”, asked Angela.

“Better.”, she answered. “I have the feeling I should eat, but I’m not very hungry…”

“You will have to regain some weight, yes, but we will wait a bit more before giving you anything solid. How long since you last ate?”

“Hum… Two, three days?”

Angela nodded for herself.

“Ester, I don’t want to stress you, but I have to know if they did something to you while you were with Talon… Something that could affect your health: physical or mental.”, she said, sitting at the bed’s foot.

The girl tilted her head a bit.

“Uh… The head wound I did it to myself… Once there, I got homesick… Not the first time it happens. Anxiety and stuff like that. I puked everything I put in my mouth. I got better. They wanted to brainwash me, and then I escaped. I think that’s the general summary. I’m not conscious of anything that I find invasive…”, she completed.

The doctor studied her eyes. Looking for lies.

“Alright.”, she nodded. “Later, we will need to tell us everything with more detail. Maybe we will figure out something you didn’t notice…”

“Okay.”, nodded Ester. “Lúcio told me I could have visits. Can I see somebody?”, she asked with bright eyes.

“Of course.”, smiled Angela, getting up. “Who do you want me to call?”

“I don’t care.”, replied Ester, laughing nervously and shaking her head. “Whoever!”

The doctor dedicated her the most angelical of smiled and went out to the corridor.

A few seconds later Lena and Reinhardt entered with bright eyes and excited smiles.

“Hello!”, greeted Ester with tears of happiness in her eyes.

Lena ran to hug her, and it didn’t take long for the knight to join.

Lots of questions, lots of reassurances and expressions of happiness were abundant during the visits, that went in in small groups by order of the medics. When Winston arrived, the girl almost leaps on him to hug him. She had never wanted to hug somebody so badly.

Fareeha, Torbjörn and Ana brought cookies, which Angela put aside rapidly, ignoring Ester’s complaints.

McCree stood before her, trapping her in a bear hug.

“Just so you know.”, he said, staring intently at her eyes. “That I retire your permission to touch Peacekeeper.”

She laughed.

And after a lot of visits, conversations, and a while alone to drink some soup and vomit it; the four persons she still hadn’t seen appeared.

Zenyatta, Hanzo, Genji and Jack greeted her formally. Ester tried to dissimulate the surprise that was receiving a hug from Jack, but she decided to enjoy it.

A weird silence settled among the group.

“Um… We are about to have a spiritual conversation, aren’t we?”, she tempted. She turned her head a little to look at Jack. “Do you remember…?”

“The train. Yes.”, he nodded. “That’s the reason why I… proposed Zenyatta to try and look for you.”

“And the Shimadas helped me.”, the omnic intervened softly. “Without them, I couldn’t have moved through the Iris with such ease.”

“Oh… The dragons?”, sounded Ester.

The brothers nodded.

“They were very pretty!”, she prompted, smiling sweetly.

Genji released a giggle. Hanzo fought to hide his flattery.

“Ester.”, called Jack. “I thought you have gotten in the train.”, he said with hurt in his voice.

The girl’s smile erased completely.

“Ah. No.”

Silence.

She lowered her gaze to avoid eye contact.

But nobody said anything, and the silence started being uncomfortable and Ester’s thoughts went down to her stomach, climbing rapidly to her mouth.

“My brother kicked me out.”, she vomited, at last.

Surprise shook the presents.

“Ja.”, she said, shrugging and freeing them from the obligation to answer something.

“Did he… say something?”, tempted Hanzo.

The girl released a huff between her sad smile.

“That everything would be alright.”, she answered with shaky voice.

She supressed a hiccup and rose her head to take in more air and calm down.

Zenyatta approached her to touch her hand.

Ester looked at him, searching for a chance to change subject.

“You were a cloud.”, she said with a vanishing smile.

The omnic only needed a second to catch up.

“And you shinned like a star.”, he nodded with something akin to admiration.

The Catalan’s smile grew wider.

“I tried looking for you in my dreams… But I didn’t manage it…”, she commented.

The monk straightened his neck with a surprised expression.

“What?”, she asked, now confused.

“We met twice.”, he replied.

Now the surprised one was Ester; her eyes asking for an explanation.

“You presented yourself to me while I was meditating. You told me to tell everyone that if someone called, we had to answer…”

“I don’t remember doing that.”, she muttered, frowning. “When I tried, I woke up without remembering a thing…”

“I am certain it was you.”, the omnic continued, now with a bit of doubt in his voice. “The colour was a bit more orange, but… it was you.”

“I don’t recall it…”, she insisted, trying hard to remember. But in that moment she had the feeling that her brain was a bunch of tangled cables; unable to work without short-circuiting.

“We can worry about that later.”, intervened Genji, freeing her mercifully of her line of thought.

“Ester.”, Jack reclaimed her attention again. “What you did…”

“Ha!”, the girl laughed, interrupting the serious atmosphere that had settled in the room the moment the solider had opened his mouth and leaving the presents worried about the Catalan’s mental integrity. “I would do it again.”, she said, fighting for her smile to not grow too wide to match with her defiant stare.

Triumphant.

 

Ester enjoyed her first solid dinner when she heard a commotion in the corridor. It seemed like Lúcio was arguing about something, but she couldn’t make out what…

An angry shout, another outraged. A loud blow, probably against a wall. Ester left the food be and pushed it aside, straightening, attentive. She glanced around and outstretched her arm to pick up a scissor that rested in a nearby table and hid her hands under the sheets.

A few quick steps, decompensated.

And then a figure appeared at the door.

“Jaime!”, she gasped, extremely happy to see him. The scissors slipped out of her hands and were left abandoned under the sheets.

“G’day!”, he greeted with a trustful smile that suddenly turned shy.

The change in attitude surprised her a bit, so she studied the boy while he neared her.

He was practically the same, except for a small detail: from one of his braces coated in bombs hung a sad rose with barely three petals, withered and broken, brown with fading specks of red. The girl’s gaze fixed on the flower.

The red rose.

Her expression flooded with warmth, and at last she rose her eyes to meet Junkrat’s.

“Glad you’re back.”, he said before Ester had time to open her mouth.

She nodded in appreciation. “I see that… Zenyatta gave you the rose…”, she commented with a bout of shyness.

The Aussie nodded nervously.

“Yeah… At first I didn’t get what the deal was about, but Symmetra helped me with research and… Well.”, he interrupted suddenly, looking around, moving his hands behind him. “For what I get, I have to give you this.”, he said.

And from behind his back, he pulled a book.

_Cien años de soledad._

Ester rose her arms slowly and took the present, sliding her fingers among the cover in a sweet gesture. She opened the book and caressed the inky words, savouring the paper’s texture.

“Thank you.”, she said, raising her eyes with a smile. “I like it a lot.”, and tilted her head upwards.

Jamison recognized the gesture and leaned towards her.

Their lips found each other softly in a shy expression of love. A short kiss, but incredibly sweet.

When they pulled apart, Ester released a huff and a nervous laugh, while Junkrat released one of his giggles. They exchanged silly looks and relieved puffs and huffs for a while, until the girl’s senses called her attention back to what was in her hands.

“Um… Jaimie…”

“Yeah?”, he jumped, directing all his attention to her automatically.

“I thought paper was very regulated and that, for that, no more books are being printed…”

“Oh. Ah…”, he did, scratching the back of his neck with his metal hand.

Ester recognized the culpability tone.

“Jaime… Have you stolen the book?”, she asked with a soft look that gave away that she already knew the answer.

“Ehm… Maybe a little bit…”, he smiled shyly. “But I had to do it! A rose, a book!”, he excused himself, pointing first at the withered flower on his brace and then at the book resting on Ester’s lap. “You… You don’t want it anymore?”, he asked with fear.

Ester sighed.

“I don’t like the idea of it being stolen, but I won’t ask you to return it. I know the meaning of the gift. Thanks for wanting to understand, Jaimie.”

“Well, it’s quite a simple tradition!”, he replied cheerfully. “Gift trade. A pity that you don’t have anything that implies fire and explosions…”, he lamented with one of his giggles.

“We do.”, the girl answered with a mischievous smile. “They are called _Correfocs_. Fire-run. People get out on the streets and dance and run under the fire around people dressed up as devils. There’re rockets, sparklers, fireworks. People raise their hands to touch the fire’ sparks.”, she explained stroking the book’s cover absent-mindedly: “The _tabalers_ play and dance at their own rhythm, until you can’t tell apart the drum’s vibration from the beating of your heart. In _Sant Joan_ , people make bonfires to burn old furniture and stuff that is not useful anymore. Homework, notes.”, she laughed. _Books_ , she omitted, “Kids buy pyrotechnics and throw them with friends or family. It’s a noisy night.”

Ester rose her gaze to meet Junkrat’s sparkling eyes.

“Ah wouldn’t mind go see one of those!”, he laughed, excited.

“No bombs of yours.”, she half scolded him.

“Ow… Not even a little one?”

“No.”, she replied firmly. “Can you pass me that tray? I want to finish dinner.”, she added with a small smile.

 

The Catalan sketched absentmindedly, sitting on a chair of the meeting room with a sheet over her shoulders. She had a small smile printed on her face, happy to b discharged from the medbay and to have her tablet back.

Slowly, and after getting over the vomit induced by medication, Ester had regained weight and had managed a healthier silhouette. Her skin wasn’t pallid anymore, and her eyes shinned with more energy.

Her head injury wasn’t visible. Satya had cut her hair so there wasn’t a decompensation in length, and truth is it looked good on her, making her curls to curl even more.

There were only two band-aids left on her feet, and now the girl had adopted the habit to wear flip-flops, which also warned of her presence.

The Overwatch’s agents started parading into the room, greeting her and Jack.

Finally, the last chair was occupied by Angela.

Jack moved from behind his chair and sat slowly, aiming a serene look t Ester, who left her pen on the table.

“Are you ready?”, he asked softly.

“Yes.”, she nodded, thinking where to begin with. “Well, uh… I accepted to go with Reaper, yeah. He made me get into a helicopter. And, I don’t know. I don’t know if it was because I was very nervous or because it’s already my pre-set solution, but I saw a sharp handlebar and I tried to pop my skull open.”, a brief pause in which the agents exchanged uneasy looks. Junkrat stared at her with sad eyes from the other side of the table, fact that made her feel ashamed of her behaviour.

Ester frowned. She had never felt ashamed for trying to…

She shook her head minutely to concentrate. She and Jack shared a look, a silent agreement to skip that part. But Ester pressed her lips together.

She didn’t like lying.

“And being unconscious I found Jack. We were both half-dead, I guess. He wanted to get on a train but that meant dying, so I distracted him until Angela could fetch him.”

More uneasy and surprised looks. Zenyatta rose a hand to give faith to her words and gestured for her to continue.

Ester’s and Jack’s eyes found each other again.

_You don’t have to tell that part_ , he was saying.

But she opened her mouth to take some air in.

“I tried to get on the train but my brother kicked me out.”, she spitted, blinking fast to scare away tears. “His name was Pau. I don’t know if I had told you. The name means ‘small’, but it’s also the word for ‘peace’.”, she smiled with nostalgia. “Anyways. He didn’t let me die. Then I woke up in Talon… Reyes wasn’t happy about my attempt.”, she laughed briefly. “They left me alone for a few days because I was stunned by the blow, then I got homesick. Where are we, by the way?”

“Lisboa”, answered Lúcio.

“Oh…”, mouthed Ester, ubicating herself. “I have never been there.”, she commented. “Uh, well… Reaper allowed me to get out of the base to see if I got better, and it helped me a bit. I think that was the night when I met Zen, Genji and Hanzo while dreaming…”

The three of them nodded.

“Zenyatta was a cloud, Genji a dragon and Hanzo two!”, she explained with a childish smile. “It was beautiful! The grass glowed and there were lots of stars!”

“Ester…”, Lena softly called her attention, trying to redirect her.

“Sorry, yeah… Next day they took me to a meeting with the bosses. They wanted me to dream for them… They had one of Athena’s recordings. I explained them how it works and managed to negotiate some extra commodities. They gave me two weeks to tell them something useful before retiring them, but I only dreamt about Reaper… Did you know that he visits his family on Christmas but never tells them anything? I also saw how he shot you.”, she added, looking at Jack. “Ana was there too.”

The two ex-commanders exchanged a glance.

“I thought you saw the future.”, said Jack.

Ester shrugged. “I come from sixty years ago, this is the future to me.”, she smiled, pointing downwards.

“Ester”, Winston called her. “Did you have more human contact besides Reaper?”

She tilted her head, thinking.

“The doctor. And the soldiers that brought me food.”

“Did you spend time with him?”

“With Reaper, yes. He stood guard whenever I was outside.”

The gorilla and the doctor exchanged a look.

“What?”, asked Ester.

“I have been reviewing the tests I made… That early morning. Do you remember?”

It took a few seconds to click, but she finally nodded.

“Your neuronal activity is high in sleep state. It’s quite normal, since everybody dreams when asleep… But your brain shows activity at the imagination and calculous areas.”, explained Angela.

“We had the hypothesis that your dreams were formed from the information you receive while awake; information that your brain processes while you sleep to make the predictions that you perceive as “dreams”.”, continued Winston.

“’We had’?”, Ester pointed out.

“For what you tell, once isolated, you stopped dreaming future events. The only exterior stimuli you received was from Reaper, so your brain only absorbed him… Because of lack of information to elaborate premonitions, your subconscious went to deduce his past. Fact that proves our hypothesis. So it’s not an hypothesis anymore, it’s a theory.”, the scientist smiled, notably proud.

Ester eyed Zenyatta through the corner of her eyes.

“And how do you explain my meeting with Jack and then Zen?”, she asked with a subtle bounce.

“Ehm…”, mouthed Winston, raising a finger while thinking the answer.

“Ah, ah, ah! I got you!”, she laughed. “Your arguments are invalid! We go back to the Iris theory.”, she smiled mischievously.

“That doesn’t have anything to do with…”, he started protesting.

Ana cleared her throat.

“You can debate this later. Could you continue, Ester?”, she asked with her raspy but soft voice.

“Yes.”, she answered immediately. “Ehm… Where was I? The dreams, yeah. I didn’t dream anything profitable. They didn’t like it and wanted to brainwash me. I think I took out a woman’s eye. It felt good.”, she added with a giggle that put everyone on edge. Unless Junkrat, of course. Ester’s smile suddenly dissipated.

After all, she had said as many truths as possible so she wouldn’t feel so bad when she started hiding things.

“They locked me in a room. I was going to escape when Reaper came to take me outside, but it never happened. Who came in was Sombra. She came, spoke for a while and suddenly she grabbed me and took me out through a back door. She pointed a direction and told me that I would get to a town in a couple days… It was already nightfall so I slept on a tree. Next day I kept walking. I slept on a tree again… The next day I found an omnic!”, she added excitedly. “They were very different from you.”, she said looking at Zenyatta. “A lot bigger and squared. They didn’t talk, only made beeps and whistles. I called them ‘E’ because they had the letter painted on their body. At first they were scared of me, but they brought me to town. They are a good person.”

“This omnic… Did they have a machine gun for a hand?”, asked Torbjörn with meditative tone.

“Yes.”, Ester nodded. “Do you know them?”

“They were a Bastion.”, the engineer nodded.

“Hum. Is that their name? Bastion?”

The Swedish nodded again.

“The un made me a bit uneasy but they were very kind to me. They protected me from Talon.”, explained Ester when she noticed the tension building.

“I believe you.”, said Torbjörn, but she knew it was an answer equivalent to: `let’s drop the subject’.

“And then?”, asked Mei, because Ester was refusing to let it be, holding the dwarf’s gaze.

“Not much.”, the girl mumbled. “I arrived at town, I called you, I hid. I ran, you got there. And that’s it.”

There was a moment of silence. Ester swung her legs slowly. Her body was relaxed. Her expression didn’t show signs of fear, sadness or nervousness. She was calm.

But she had been kidnaped. How could she be like that, without the slightest symptom of PTSD?

“Are… you okay?”, Hana asked cautiously.

The Catalan’s eyes found hers slowly.

“Yes. Tired. But well. I’m just glad to be here.”, she answered with a sincere smile.

 

Jack accompanied her to her room. Ester bided farewell with a long hug and entered her new room.

Her first night alone since her return.

She walked around the space as if the floor was littered with traps, checking walls and roof, looking for cameras. There weren’t any. She turned on the bathroom’s light, she checked walls, roof and furniture, and stepped out.

The girl stood at the middle of the room, feeling watched even thought she wasn’t being monitored, with the weight of her lies on her throat. She stroked her left elbow absentmindedly.

She sat down in front of the table, were her tablet was resting. She vacillated for a moment and, with a strange and shy gesture, neared her elbow to it.

The screen flickered with the violet purple that Ester already associated with Sombra, and it showed her the menu.

She rose her eyes, looking around. Athena didn’t say a thing: not a light, not an echo of her voice to comment that she had noticed something unusual.

The device didn’t do anything suspicious either, nothing that made her think that a virus was being downloaded.

Without more contemplations, Ester opened the files.

There was a timeline. It went from 2010 to the present.

Next to some years, there were links to archives and files. She clicked on the 2015 one:

Reinhardt Wilhelm is born.

Ester almost chokes on her spit. The knight was sixteen years younger than her! He must be a toddler back at her time!

It mentioned his place of birth, blood type, parent’s names.

She passed to the 2016 file.

Ana Amari is born.

The thought that all adults around her were younger than her was starting to irritate her, so she took a moment to mentalize herself.

It was natural, she had made a jump to the future. Maybe her body was young, but she had been born the year she had been born. Her body was nineteen. Her mind too, of course. But on her count, she must be about eighty years old. On stablished terms, that was her age. She was an octogenarian.

A very well conserved octogenarian, she told herself.

From 2036 on the timeline was very crowded.

Ester had thought that she could look it all over in a day, but she found out she had to ration it to maintain her emotional health.

She saw Angela’s parent’s death certificates, read the news on the incident and left it for tomorrow.

When she crossed ways with Doctor Ziegler, she didn’t comment, but she had the feeling she could see more of her. The girl addressed her with renewed respect.

It was the turn of the Australian conflict. Ester startled when a video file opened and run the turn down the volume and close herself into the bathroom. A chronic told the Australian Crisis, the donation of land to the omnic population and the creation of the Australian Liberation Front.

The tablet pointed out a name in violet: Mako Rutledge. Roadhog.

Automatically, the device linked to Junkrat’s files.

The information on him was… disperse. Few stuff was known, a part from him knowing a highly valuable secret.

Curiosity bit at her, but she killed it on the spot. It wasn’t her business. If someday he wanted to tell her, he would.

The core explosion and the irradiation. The formation of Junkertown.

She took the next night off and went to the gardens with Jaimie. They laid on the grass, watching the sky.

“The moon’s beautiful today.”, she commented.

“Mother Onion?”, he asked, turning his head to look at her.

She turned her head, too.

“Is that how you call it?”, she smiled with curiosity.

“Yep!”, he nodded.

“I think it is… not very romantic, isn’t it?”, she said, rolling to lay on her stomach and being closer to the Aussie.

“Onions can be very romantic!”, protested Junkrat.

Ester released a musical laugh, and Jaimie followed her with his giggle. Slowly, she lowered herself to rest her head on his chest. He embraced her with an arm around her back, and they stood like that for a while, in silence.

“I know you won’t understand, and that I don’t sing very well, but… Can I sing you a love song?”, she said suddenly, raising to look at him in the eyes.

“Uh, well… I don’t know much about music, I won’t know how to appreciate it or anything…”, he answered, sitting up a bit. “But if you want… Go ahead. I won’t say no.”, he smiled shyly.

Ester returned the smile and leaned forward to kiss his cheek.

She sat on her heels and cleared her throat, tilting her head towards Junkrat’s golden hair beside him, looking at the moon.

“The title is: _Boig per tu:_

_En la terra humida escric:_  
"nena, estic boig per tu"  
em passo els dies esperant la nit.  
  
Com et puc estimar  
si de mi estàs tan lluny  
servil i acabat  
boig per tu.  
  
Sé molt bé que des d'aquest bar  
jo no puc arribar on ets tu  
però dins la meva copa veig  
reflectida la teva llum  
me la beuré  
servil i acabat  
boig per tu.  
  
Quan no hi siguis al matí  
les llàgrimes es perdran  
entre la pluja que caurà avui.  
Em quedaré atrapat  
ebri d'aquesta llum  
servil i acabat

_boig per tu.”_

 

Ester finished singing and changed her legs position to sit on the grass.

“It’s… pretty.”, he tried. “What’s it about?”

She smiled.

“It’s a love song of a person to the moon. They spend the days waiting for the night to see it, but because they can’t get to it, they resign themselves to drink the moonlight on their drink. You are my moon.”

“But I am here.”, he said. “Next to you.”

Ester masked a sad smile.

“I know.”, she answered. “I love you.”

Jaimie leaned to kiss her hair.

 

Next night it was about McCree’s story. Deadlock, Blackwatch, Ashe. A reference to Commander Reyes. Reaper. Jesse and Gabriel were close? The motherfuckers hadn’t given it too much thought before shooting each other!

At that point, Ester skipped entire paragraphs. From link to link she got to lots of other events.

Winton’s origin, his scape from the moon’s colony revolution.

The inside conflict of the Shimada Clan, the showdown between Genji and Hanzo. A picture of Genji at the moment of his rescue popped open by itself, and Ester had to make a run for the toilet to puke. She lost her cool and started crying.

Okay, yeah, she had insinuated Hanzo that the battle between the dragons had been also between brothers, but she hadn’t imagined… that!!!

With her eyes closed, she felt the screen until she heard the image closing. She needed a long hour to mentalize that everything was well now: Genji was alright, Hanzo was alright, they had forgiven each other, everything was well, Hanzo was kind and Genji was kind and everybody makes mistakes and surely they regretted it and wouldn’t do it ever again.

She released a shaky exhale and readied herself to keep reading.

Genji joined Blackwatch. Hanzo left the clan.

Vishkar took in Satya. Zarya left the competitions to fight.

An omnic attacked Korea. Lena tried a plane prototype and was left unanchored from time. Winston built her chronal accelerator.

Talon kidnapped Amélie Lacroix, wife of Gérard Lacroix, and turned her into an sleeping agent. She killed her husband.

Lúcio started his street shows.

An entire archive of Torbjörn’s arms race. Bastion’s blue prints.

Jack Morrison, leader of Overwatch after stepping on Gabriel Reyes.

Ana Amari, declared dead after Widowmaker’s attack.

Mei enters cryonitzation. Her teammates die.

Explosion at Overwatch’s base of operation in Switzerland. Jack Morrison presumed dead, Gabriel Reyes presumed dead, hundreds of wounded and losses.

Jesse McCree on the run, Genji disappeared.

Disbanding of Overwatch because of Petras Act.

That night, Ester didn’t sleep. She made sure she had seen all files.

Finally, she turned her tablet off.

Fucked up. They were all fucked up. Maybe she snapped, maybe it was the lack of sleep, but Ester felt like jumping around the hallway shouting: _Hurray for fucked up people!!!_ , and hug and give away kisses because holy shit everybody had suffered so much and nobody deserved it.

_Vete. Consigue que te manden a casa,_ she had said.

Sombra new she came from the past. And she had given her the detailed information on everything that was about to happen in the next sixty years.

What the hell had she seen in the screen that made her not only help her, but also provide her… this information? That data base that seemed to be the work of a lifetime, and she had injected it into her elbow and sent her home!

She wanted her to return to the past. She wanted her to be aware of everything. But what did she want of it? For her to avoid it from happening? Or to make sure it happened?

_Entonces, harás todo lo que puedas para ayudarles, ¿verdad?_

Did that meant that she had to intervene in some way? She couldn’t pretend for her to carry the weight of history.

Right?

 

Finally morning came, and Ester still thought about what she knew. All the suffering. She hadn’t told anyone. She wondered if maybe they could see it on her face. If her behaviour had changed without her realising it.

She jumped out of bed and walked swiftly to one of the common rooms, where she remembered seeing a microphone.

“Athena”, she said to the air.

“How can I help you, Ester? Do you need a voice recording?”, offered the A.I.

“No. Could you make that the microphone broadcasted all over the base? I want to sing.”, she smiled.

“I am reading the configuration. Please, have in mind that there could be agents working and needed silence.”

“It will only be a song.”, she reassured, still in her pyjama.

She hadn’t styled her hair, but with her now short hair she didn’t even needed it to look well.

She got to the karaoke trotting and said the song’s title to Athena.

“Press the button to start.”, she sing-sang.

“Thanks!”, Ester smiled.

She took a moment to think about the pain and sorrow that all had suffered. Then she thought about the song’s lyrics, and it swiped the negative feelings away. It was then, when she knew she would sing with emotion, that she pressed the button. Music started playing, attracting the agents that were nearby.

A screen deployed with the lyrics:

 

_Caus a terra molt avall_ You fall, so downwards _  
creus que no te'n sortiràs,_ You think you won’t make it  
_però amb els mesos te n'adones_ But with the months you realize _  
que tornes a començar._ That you start anew _  
I a força de molt de caure_ And by falling a lot _  
i de tornar-te aixecar_ And getting up again _  
veus que les coses no canvien_ You see things doesn’t change _  
però ja no ets qui eres abans._ But you aren’t who you were before _  
Doncs he estat ja cinc o sis_ So I have been five or six _  
i sóc el que ara vull,_ And I am what I want now _  
no vull pensar en el que arribarà demà!_ I don’t want to think what will come tomorrow!  
_  
Llença't, cada instant és únic_ Leap, every instant is unique _  
no es repetirà,_ It won’t repeat  
_sento que el cor ja no para de bategar_ I feel that my heart won’t stop beating _  
i diu que em llenci,_ And says that I have to leap _  
que no pensi en tot el que vindrà,_ To not think about all that will come, _  
que un llapis mai no dibuixa sense una mà._ That a pencil never draws without a hand _  
  
I perquè els meus pensaments                      _ And because my thoughts _  
que sempre viuen el present_ That always live the present _  
no conjuguen altres temps que_ Don’t conjugate other times apart from _  
el ja faré, el que no vaig fer._ The I will do, what I didn’t do _  
Doncs avui o potser demà_ So today or maybe tomorrow _  
seré aquí o seré per allà,_ I will be here or I will be there _  
seré un tros de l´univers_ I will be a piece of the universe _  
que no noti el pas del temps._ That doesn’t feel the pass of time _  
El que faig a cada instant és_ What I do at every instant _  
la força que em fa gran,_ It’s the strenght that makes me great _  
no vull pensar en el que arribarà demà._ I don’t want to think what will come tomorrow! _  
  
Llença't, cada instant és únic                        _ Leap, every instant is unique _  
no es repetirà,_ It won’t repeat, _  
sento que el cor ja no para de bategar_ I feel that my heart won’t stop beating _  
i diu que em llenci,_ And says that I have to leap _  
que no pensi en tot el que vindrà,_ To not think about what will come _  
que un llapis mai no dibuixa sense una mà._ That a pencil can’t draw without a hand. _  
  
Llença´t, cada instant és únic                        _ Leap, every instant is unique _  
no es repetirà,_ It won’t repeat, _  
sento que el cor ja no para de bategar_ I feel that my heart won’t stop beating _  
i diu que em llenci,_ And says that I have to leap _  
que no pensi en tot el que vindrà,_ To not think about what will come __  
que un llapis mai no dibuixa sense una mà.  That a pencil can’t draw without a hand.

 

They sang together the last verse, resulting in a cacophony of intonations and bad pronunciations that made everybody laugh.

“Somebody woke up cheerful today!”, laughed Jesse.

“Nope!”, replied Ester, with her hands high in the air. “I didn’t sleep at all, I have no fucking idea where the fuck I am taking energy from but I really feel like singing! Is this what people feels when they are drunk?”, she laughed.

Bouncing around, she gave good day kisses, radiating energy. They had to struggle to get her to sit for breakfast. She didn’t stop chatting and asking questions about their life, but nothing particular. Nobody could do a thing to stop her when she got up to pick uo her tablet and started drawing them one by one.

While drawing, Ester asked them to sing.

Most songs she didn’t knew, but she guessed that sixty years gave way to tons of songs. She waited for them to finish impatiently, reading the lyric’s translations, while a song itched in her throat.

A mischievous smile escaped her lips. How would they take the lyrics? Would they think she really believed that or that she was calling for attention? She didn’t know, and hoped that it was not the latter.

She wanted to sing:

_Nascut entre Blanes i Cadaqués,_ Born between Blanes and Cadaqués, _  
molt tocat per la Tramuntana,_ Touched by the north wind, _  
d'una sola cosa pots estar segur,_ Just one thing you can be sure _  
quant més vell més tocat de l'ala._ The oldest, the craziest. _  
  
Sempre deia que a la matinada es mataria, _ Always said he would kill himself at sunrise, _  
però cap al migdia anava ben torrat._ But at midday he was so drunk.  
_Somriu i diu que no té pressa,_ Smiles and says he’s in no rush, _  
ningú m'espera allà dalt_ Nobody awaits me up there _  
i anar a l'infern no m'interessa,_ And I’m not interested in going to hell _,  
és molt més bonic l'Empordà.                       _ Empordà it’s so much prettier. _  
  
Varen passar ampolles i anys                        _ Bottles and years passed on _  
i en Siset encara aguantava_ And Siset still held on _  
dormint la mona a la vora del Ter_ Sleeping the hangover by the Ter _  
però ell mai no s'hi tirava._ But he never throwed himself in it. _  
  
Sempre deia que a la matinada es mataria, _ Always said he would kill himself at sunrise, _  
però cap al migdia anava ben torrat._ But at midday he was so drunk.  
_Somriu i diu que no té pressa,_ Smiles and says he’s in no rush,  
_ningú m'espera allà dalt_ Nobody awaits me up there _  
i anar a l'infern no m'interessa,_ And I’m not interested in going to hell, _  
és molt més bonic l'Empordà._ Empordà it’s so much prettier.  
__  
  


_I quan veig la llum de l'alba_             And when I see the light of dawn _  
se'm treuen les ganes de marxar_ I lose the will to leave _  
potser que avui no em suïcidi_ Maybe I won’t suicide today _  
__potser ho deixi fins demà,_ Maybe I’ll leave it for tomorrow, __  
fins demà, fins demà!!                                   For tomorrow, for tomorrow!

 

Ester finished, having sung with energy and a smile, and studied her spectator’s expressions: dissimulated smiles, bright eyes; both matching the girl’s face.

They had made a promise.

 

A few days went by. September was nearing. In the mornings, Ester went to the training room, where Fareeha taught her to shoot and assemble weapons. Before lunch, Jack and Lena brought her to do exercise. After the meal, she went through the workshops and labs: watching Torbjörn work, observing Satya’s designs, asking questions and providing ideas to Mei and Winston. When done, she went to sit next to Zenyatta. They were normally in silence. Sometimes the omnic tried to teach her how to contact with the Iris. When it got late, she met with Hana, Lúcio and whoever wanted to join them to play videogames, listen to music or watch movies. One day she even got them to watch a theatre play, _Mar i Cel_.

Ester got up from the sofa to sing the main song, vibrating of excitement.

During dinner, she talked with everyone she hadn’t encountered that day, and she defined small variations on her schedule.

It had been days without interesting dreams. Or she didn’t remember them. Her mind was busy with other stuff.

She still had the chip in her elbow. Angela had made like four scanners with different devices and nothing had detected it. But it didn’t hurt and Talon hadn’t attacked them, so she supposed it was a good signal.

She kept thinking what she had to do. She kept thinking what she COULD do.

Was it irresponsible of her to do nothing?

Was it narcissist, egoistic, megalomaniac to think that she had the duty to do something?

What did Sombra want?

What did herself want?

At night, alone in her room, she stroked her elbow absentmindedly; a gest that everyone had interpreted as an act of consolation after a traumatic event. In front of her, her loyal tablet.

She rose her elbow so the tablet would react. Again, it lit up with violet light.

_Instalar archivos_

The portraits she had done of the Overwatch’s agents transferred to her elbow.

She stared at the tablet in her hands for a long while.

_Buscador_

And, as so many people do, Ester wrote her name on the search bar: Ester Viladrau Gelabert.

She rose her finger, and it stayed hovering over the search button.

She took her finger again and deleted the name.

No.

Whatever it was that was about to be her life, she wouldn’t be slave of something she read. She wouldn’t risk it with stupid paradoxes. She wouldn’t budge to time’s will.

As she saw it, she had two options.

She pondered them slowly.

 

“Everything ready!”, exclaimed Junkrat., tossing the last bag of provisions in the sidecar.

Roadhog sat on the motorbike, hands on the handlebars, ready to go.

The Aussie had warned her a couple of days ago that they were planning an outing.

Ester had dropped all plans to be with him until he left.

Now the couple looked at each other: Jamison with a wide smile and eyes bright with excitement; Ester with her lips slightly pressed and worried gaze.

“Don’t give me that face!”, the Junker tried to cheer her up, sweetening his smile.

“We will be back soon! And I won’t bring anything stolen, I promise.”, he added with her metal hand above his heart and raising his flesh one.

Ester snorted, smiling, trying to supress a laugh. She leaned forward to hug him. Slowly, she rose a hand to stroke his golden hair. He entertained himself pulling a bit at her curls, which returned to their place like springs.

“Um… You can let me go whenever you want.”, Junkrat said casually when the hug became too long.

She didn’t have any rush to back away.

“You know I love you, right?”, she asked, looking at him intently.

“Of course!”, he smiled.

Ester slipped her arms over his shoulders to retain him for a while longer. When Jaime stepped back, he got close again to whisper in her ear:

“If I am your moon, you are my treasure.”

The tenderness in those words allowed a tear to escape Ester’s eyes.

Luckily, the Junker didn’t notice.

With a cheerful pace, Junkrat got on the sidecar.

“Ei, Mako.”, called Ester. Roadhog turned around to look at her. “Take care of my Jaimie, okay?”

The behemoth nodded slowly and drove off.

Ester didn’t stop waving goodbye until she lost them of sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I guess I gave a girlfriend to Junkrat, eh?  
> Songs:  
> Boig per tu: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzNwIDpJjJU  
> Llença't: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXirBoNIdCo  
> L'Empordà: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVlFc4uPOPo
> 
> I suggest you re-read the chaper My homeland for Easter Eggs. Or should I say "Ester Eggs"? Hahahaha somebody stop me  
> Next chapter is really short, I'll try to post it tomorrow morning.


	19. Goodbye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I recommend to read this chapter while listening to this orchestration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuRdqnSQT_M

“I want to go home.”, Ester said, gaze lowered, incapable of making eye contact with the people sitting around her.

A surprised silence, heavy with tension and confusion, settled in the meeting room.

“To your time?”, asked Winston to make sure.

Ester nodded twice, gathering strength to raise her eyes and look at the scientist.

“Um… Well, I have to confess that I haven’t looked into it for a long time because of… other priorities. I don’t have the problem localized, but I’ll get into it immediately…”

“You told me one day that you had fixed an escape in the chronal accelerator?”, she blurted out, rising her head a bit.

“Eh… Yes.”

“Was the escape of the energy conduct through the place where the temporal flux takes place?”

The gorilla narrowed his eyes behind his glasses.

“I should double check it, but it might be…”, he admitted.

“The energy entered the temporal flux, giving place to a closed circuit which recycled the energy to make a sixty-year temporal jump.”, she explained.

Winston straightened up. The others exchanged looks, uneasy.

“It’s… possible.”, he nodded slowly. “How do you…?”

“I read something alike in a comic book months ago.”, Ester answered, shrugging.

“Have you known since the beginning?”, Winston growled, clearly offended.

“Yes.”, she admitted with a whisper, lowering her gaze again.

“And why didn’t you say so?!”, he yelled, gesticulating.

“Becaue then I didn’t want to leave.”

Another silence.

“And now you do want?”, asked Hanzo.

Ester glanced at him briefly before tearing her eyes away in shame.

She swallowed, reding her throat so the biggest, densest and heaviest lie she would ever say made its way to her tongue:

“Yes.”

“You are not… happy, here?”, Angela asked with hurt.

“It’s not that!”, Ester yelled, relieved of being able to say a truth. She swallowed again, remembering the arguments she had readied. “But I have been thinking… And what kind of life awaits me, here? Outside of Overwatch, I mean. It’s supposed I banished from society decades ago. Could I have a job, a house, friends, talk politics with my neighbours? I… I don’t picture it.”, she explained. And it was true.

“We can help you.”, said Lena, leaning on the table. “If that’s what you want, we can inform you, we can make some calls…”

“I don’t want to be plugged in”, she grumbled. “Besides, right now Overwatch is illegal, right? I don’t want to cause trouble.”

“Despite that, we still could…”

“THERE IS NO TALON IN MY TIME, OKAY?!”, she yelled, standing up. After a couple of seconds, she left herself fall on her chair. She sighed. Another lie. “I would like to stay. Really. I love you a lot and I am very greatful. But I shouldn’t be here.” A truth.

“If that’s what you want, we’ll help you.”, said Jack. “Winston. Lena. Could you get started on the chronal accelerator thing?”

The two of them exchanged a glance, knowing they couldn’t refuse.

“Of course.”

“Yes, sir.”, Lena nodded, her voice with a sad cadence.

They got up and left.

Ester shielded her face with her hands, elbows resting on the table.

She didn’t dare look at anybody.

She wasn’t worthy.

“I’m sorry.”, she mumbled. “I’m sorry.”, was the only thing she could say.

“You don’t have to apologize.”, rose Ana’s voice. “The original plan had always been to send you back home, sweetheart. Sooner or later, we would have to make a decision.”

“Maybe, uh… I could make you a playlist?”, Lúcio asked shyly.

“She shouldn’t take tech with her.”, said Satya.

Ester stroked her elbow.

“Yeah…”, the Brazillian hissed, crest fallen.

“Ei, it’s okay!”, the girl said, smiling. “I just have to wait about fifty years, right? It will be worth it.”

A wide smile spread on Lúcio’s face.

“Hey, does that mean that you are my first fan? Cool!!! You deserve a signed shirt or something!”, he exclaimed, jumping off his chair and leaving the room.

By chance, Ester’s and Genji’s gaze crossed.

“Feel free to gift me a shuriken.”

“Abolutly not.”

She bursted laughing at the dry tone the ninja had used.

“Will you keep an eye on global warming, if you have time?”, asked Mei in a low voice.

“I will do what I can.”, she nodded with the same tone.

The two women shared a small smile.

“Hey!”, Hana yelled from the other side of the table. “If you buy videogames: don’t throw them away, alright? I like the classics.”

“Sure.”, Ester replied with a giggle, “I will have a carboard box where I will write: ‘Games that I have already beaten for Hana Song’.”, she announced, raising her hands and spreading then in the air, as if it were a huge, visible title.

Fareeha got Ester’s attention, who spoke lowly to her mother and Jack. She watched them until Jack proclaimed a loud and clear ‘no’.

“I seriously think that she is responsible enough to have it.”, the young Egyptian insisted.

“Fareeha, for the last time: we are not sending her back to the past with a plasma pistol.”, Ana declared.

“Is somebody offering me weapons? Because I accept!”

“No!”, Ana and Jack replied in unison, and McCree got on the train too.

“God help you if I find out that you have held a gun without supervision in your life, because I will make you swallow it.”, the cowboy continued.

“Dude, relax. I won’t shoot myself.”, Ester half-laughed.

“And how can we sure of that?”, he insisted.

The room became silent. All eyes were on the Catalan now, who had blinked twice and had her head tilted in slight shock.

When finally she found her answer, she straightened her neck and smiled tenderly.

“Because for every second gone, I will be a second closer to you.”

Ester smiled at the flustered faces, glad to had said something that made them happy.

 

Winston, Satya, Lena and Torbjörn were finishing up the preparatives: the two first checked screens; the others were securing cables.

All Overwatch’s agents had left Lisboa to travel to an abandoned industrial park in the Catalan Pyrenees, minus Junkrat and Roadhog, who were still away. They had decided to do it this way because Ester didn’t have any kind of documentation with her, so if she were to be stopped in a control she would have trouble.

Now she stood, looking nervously how the others worked, leaning every now and then to the suitcase they had gifted to her, full of clothes for all seasons (and the reversible t-shirt signed by Lúcio, who had smuggled it for her).

The others noteiced her restlessness and tried to distract her the best they could.

“Have you thought what are you going to do?”, Reinhardt asked softly. “As a job, I mean.”

Ester sighed.

“I want to help people.”, she answered, raising her eyes to watch him. “I think I will give it a try as a social worker. I will join a support grup for family and friends of people who commited suicide. I think I will be able to help… and be helped.”

The German nodded vigorously, and she replied with a smile.

“I will also like to keep a diary of my dreams… Make a bit of research. Statistics on accuracy, error margin, stuff like that. And whatever comes up in life.”, she smiled again.

“Will you go to see your parents?”, asked Fareeha.

Ester’s smile tilted down.

“Maybe… When I put together something stable and they can’t drag me with them. Then I’ll try to help them.”

Silence.

“Remember to keep the games when you are done with them, yeah?”

“Yes, Hana…”, she answered with a giggle.

“Are you sure you don’t want to wait for Jamison?”, Ana asked softly.

“I already said goodbye to him.”, Ester answered quickly. “I don’t want to make it harder than it already is.”

Silence.

“Will you keep practising archery?”, asked Hanzo.

“I would like to, yes.”, she replied with interest. “But after using your bow I don’t think I’ll be satisfied with any other.”, she smiled widely.

And got a chuckle from the archer.

“Keep on with the exercises I taught you, okay?”

“Yes, Jack… I promise to do sport, Jack…”, she repeated the sing-song she had been saying everyday since saying she was going back.

“And eat more. You are skinnier than a withered cucumber.”, Zarya added.

“Ei, I spend my energy thinking, okay? One can’t have rinoceront muscles and being a genious of the subconscious at the same tiiiiiIIIIIMEEEEE!!”

She interrumpted herself when the Russian lifted her with a hand between her shoulder blades and another at the base of her spine and started doing weight lifting with her.

“Put her down, or you’ll break her!”, laughed McCree, abandoning the cigarette he had been smoking.

“What’s with all the yelling?”, Angela’s voice echoed from somewhere out of sight.

“Nothing!”, replied Zarya, setting Ester on the floor.

The girl made a couple of wobbly steps, laughing.

“It had been a while since somebody lifted me like that!”

She stretched out her arms and released a sigh.

That wasn’t helping her to leave.

“I think this is it!”, called Winston, surrounded by screens and keyboards.

Lena was positioning herself at a safe distance, plugging the energy cable into the chronal accelerator.

Satya and Torbjörn watched the screens with arms crossed, making last moment check-ups.

Ester neared them with slow steps, dragging the suitcase behind her, feeling the other agents’ steps, who didn’t dare or didn’t want to get past her.

She stopped next to Winston.

“Whenever you are ready.”, he encouraged with an understanding smile.

She released yet another sigh, let go of the suitcase and leaped forward to hug him.

She hugged every agent, one by one, with a special gesture or word of gratitude.

Hana took off the backpack with her emblem from her back and gave it to Ester.

“What…?”

“I gave it to you, remember? It’s yours.”, she said, handing her the bag with a confident smile.

Ester noticed the weight immediately, and with a quick glance at Hana, she opened the zipper.

She almost drops the bill bundles.

“You should have enough with this to live well until you get a job. But don’t go around wasting it, alright?”, Jack smiled.

Ester stuttered for a few seconds.

“I… Thank you. Thank you.”, it was the only thing she was capable of saying, closing the zipper and hanging the bag on her back.

Finally, when she finally processed the fact that it would be very long until they saw each other again, she took a couple of steps back and looked at the group.

“Thank you very much for everything that you have done for me. I owe you my life. I hope some day we meet again, and I can return the favour.”, she said, and leaned forward to make a reverence, European style.

With a shy smile, she retrieved the suitcase and walked to Lena.

“Ready?”

“Yes, but no.”, the girl replied with a smile.

They took each other hands, feeling the energy advance towards the chornal accelerator.

“Goodbye!”, Ester yelled, waving with her free hand. “I love you!”

 

The last letter echoed in an empty building.

“Wow. People really leave places abandoned for sixty years.”, Lena commented, looking around.

Ester put the suitcase aside and faced the British.

“Well, then… You are here!”, she said, with a slightly sad smile. “I hope… that everything goes well for you and for you to be happy.”

Ester hugged her abruptly.

“Thank you, Lena. Thank you for saving my life.”, she whispered.

The woman froze. A tear escaped her eyes, but it got stuck inside her visor.

“You are welcome.”, she said. “Whenever you need it.”, she smiled, inhaling harshly.

Ester stepped back slowly.

“I hope that you are happy too, and that we will see each other some day. Tell them… Tell everybody I love them, okay? And that I will miss them and think about all of you until we meet again.”, she said, drying tears with her sleeve. “I love you all.”

“We love you too.”, answered Lena before disappearing in a blue flash.

Ester passed her sleeps through her face and slapped her cheeks a bit to focus.

 

If it weren’t for the suitcase and backpack, she would have thought it had been all a dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Drops microphone*
> 
> That's almost all, folks. The epilogue is veeeeery long. It will take time. But it will get uploaded.


End file.
